Thirty (30) participants, consisting of Provincial/City/Municipal Nutrition Action Officers (P/C/MNAOs), District/City/Municipal Nutrition Program Coordinators (D/C/MNPCs), and SB Committee Chairpersons on Health and other Social Services attended the Orientation on Tutok Kainan: Dietary Supplementation Program conducted by the National Nutrition Council Region IX on 22 January 2021 at 9AM via Google Meet.
Tutok Kainan is the newly-conceived nutrition specific project of our government. It is NNC’s COVID-response and a means to operationalize RA 11148 or the Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay Act. This project focuses on a much-needed nutrition intervention, dietary supplementation of pregnant women and young children 6-23 months old. The main objective of this program is to contribute to the prevention of stunting among children 0-23 months old by improving the quality and quantity of food and nutrient intakes and utilization of related ECCD F1K services among nutritionally at-risk pregnant women and children 6-23 months old.
During the online orientation, Nutrition Officer III Elton N. Pelegrino further explained the program to the participants. He also pointed out that this program will be implemented to nutritionally at-risk pregnant women in their 3rd trimester as pilot beneficiaries but soon after will also cover children 6-23 months of age. It was also presented that out of the 182 cities and municipalities initial beneficiaries of the program, 48 of which will come from the region of Zamboanga Peninsula with which all 25 municipalities of Zamboanga del Norte together with the cities of Dipolog and Dapitan will be included, while only 20 selected municipalities of Zamboanga del Sur including Pagadian City will be benefitted by this program.
Thereafter, NO III Pelegrino provided a glimpse of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Tutok Kainan Supplementation Program. The MOU which needs to be signed by the local chief executives includes the roles and responsibilities of the NNC Central Office, NNC Regional Office, Provincial LGU, Municipal/City LGU, and the Barangay.
In her concluding statement, Nutrition Program Coordinator Nimfa D. Ekong emphasized how important this program is and how lucky that Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur are among the initial beneficiaries of the said program. The LGUs were then provided with copies of the MOU and advised to submit the original signed copies on or before January 28, 2021 together with their updated masterlists of their 6-23 months old children and pregnant women for consolidation and submission to the NNC Central Office.
AA VI Cielo Katrina M. Mabalot
