Cebu City – Selma, an expectant mother on her first child, was sitting on the bench in the barangay health station waiting for her turn. She has many questions about pregnancy and breastfeeding. When her number was called, she asked the barangay health worker attending to her what she will do when her child refuses to suck. Myrna, a newly-hired health worker choked, and told Selma that she will refer her concern to the midwife.
This situation wouldn’t have happened if Myrna was trained on Promote Good Nutrition (PGN). The training package includes training on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), PabasasaNutrisyon and Nutritional Guidelines for Filipinos and the promotion of eggs and vegetables.
The trained participants are expected to: a) facilitate and/or conduct trainings on PGN for city/municipal level implementers who are expected to conduct trainings for barangay level; b) advocate IYCF strategy and assist LGUs in organizing IYCF community support groups; c) promote the use of the egg and vegetable syllabi in PabasasaNutrisyonn trainings; and d) monitor and follow-up participants in the conduct of IYCF counselling to mothers and caregivers and conduct PabasasaNutrisyon in the barangay. With the training rolled out in the barangays, the Barangay Nutrition Scholars, Barangay Health Workers, Mother Leaders and Barangay Councilor and Chair, Committee on Health would be armed with the right information and supporting learning aids to better educate and guide mothers and caregivers on the proper rearing of their children nutritionally.
The 8 day training of City/Municipality trainers started with batch 1 last November 11 – 19, 2012 at the Cebu Grand Hotel, Cebu City. Batch 2 will commence on November 18 – 26 and Batch 3 on November 30 – December 8 with each batch having 30 trainees. Each batch will have 5 trainer-facilitators coming from NNC Central and Regional Office, DOH – CHD 7 and other PGN-trained nutrition and health professionals. //DFB
