Our Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNSs), well known as community volunteers provide health and nutrition services to households with under five (5) years old, malnourished children, pregnant and lactating women and senior citizens. They are always on the go, rain or shine with a smile conducting house to house visits, providing nutrition counseling to mothers on how to make their children healthy. They painstakingly conduct the eOPT Plus every 1st quarter of the year in order to locate and identify malnourished children.
A BNS plays a very important role in ensuring preschool children ages under five years-old are given nutrition services. Being familiar with the community, a BNS can easily assist health and child daycare workers in providing their services to their beneficiaries as well as identifying families in dire need of assistance. In times where lactating mothers are having difficulties in breastfeeding due to the stress caused by COVID-19, BNS are always ready to assist and encourage mothers to continue breastfeeding and promote complementary feeding practices.
In this time of our war on the Big C or the COVID 19, BNSs play very challenging roles in fighting an enemy we cannot even see with our naked eye. They deliver nutrition and nutrition-related services to their respective barangays and continue to serve as frontline responders for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) despite risking their safety.
BNS together with Barangay Officials, Health and Child Development workers as members of the Barangay Health and Emergency Response Team (BHERT) provides assistance through patrolling the checkpoints, distribution of Vitamin A capsules for mothers and children under 5 years old, Ready-to-Use Therapeutic and Supplementary Foods (RUTF/ RUSF) for wasted and severely wasted preschool children, food packs, assisting families in availing financial subsidies under the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) of DSWD and assisting in the conduct of contact tracing.
BNS, as primary source of data for nutrition has formidable tasks such as conducting routine visits to vulnerable groups specially in geographically isolated and depressed areas (GIDA) areas to monitor their nutritional status and advocate good nutrition; ensure Barangay has a plan and budget for nutrition; prepare reports and documentation of nutrition activities of their barangay and coordinate with the municipal and provincial Health Offices to harmonize their nutrition and health activities.
These are some of the everyday tasks done by our own BNSs, no matter how difficult and challenging these tasks are, our BNSs – our heroes will always be happy to serve their communities with passion and commitment. (FEPBacena)
