The Local Government Unit of Zamboanga City (ZC) through the City Health Office – Nutrition Division successfully conducted their Barangay Nutrition Scholar (BNS) Federation General Assembly and Fellowship on 22 April 2022 at Grand Astoria Hotel, Zamboanga City. A total of eighty-two (82) BNSs from the 98 barangays of the city, four (4) nutrition staff from the Nutrition Division of Zamboanga City Health Office and three (3) technical staff from the National Nutrition Council Region IX (NNC9) attended the occasion. The objectives of the activity were to respond to the needs of the nutrition workers in the local nutrition program management, to conduct the election of officers, and to give tribute to retiree Ms. Virginia G. Sagrado, Nutrition Officer III-Nutrition Division of Zamboanga City Health Office.
In support to this activity, NNC9 represented by NO III Elton N. Pelegrino provided technical assistance on how to use and demonstrate the eOPT Plus tools together with ZS PNFP Karla P. Calapardo and NO I Ayesa Gay A. Bejerano. During the assembly, Mr. Pelegrino discussed the new updates on the e-OPT Plus tools, its uses and purposes as well as the mechanism pointing out the salient features of the electronic tool. He also reiterated to the BNSs that the Operation Timbang Plus (OPT Plus) must be conducted within the first quarter of every year as the result of this activity helps to determine the overall nutrition status of the 0-59 months old children and in turn aid in the formulation of plans, intervention, monitoring and evaluation of the local nutrition program. Moreover, he emphasized that the OPT Plus team must be headed by the Rural Health Midwife with the BNS serving as the coordinator.
With the alarming cases of malnutrition in our country, this OPT Plus tool has been found to be very helpful for use by the nutrition workers in the community and has been proven to ease the bulk of their workloads by simplifying the consolidation and the summary process of the OPT Plus results compared to the previous tedious manual practice. In addition, some of the troubleshooting skills were also introduced by the NNC9 team to the participants to prepare them on the possible technical problems that they may encounter while using the tool. Likewise, the techniques and skills needed in performing the roles and tasks of BNS in the different phases of OPT Plus and the roles of BNS in each phase of the barangay nutrition program management were also elaborated by the resource speaker. Handouts were also distributed by the team to guide the participants on the things discussed.
With all these and headed by RNPC Nimfa D. Ekong, NNC9 continuously commits itself to provide technical assistance to capacitate the Local Government Units as well as the Local Nutrition Workers on the Nutrition Program Management, BNS Basic Course and other capacity building topics which are geared towards making them champions in Nutrition in the near future!
Ayesa Gay A. Bejerano, RND
Nutrition Officer I
