Cebu City – The City of Cebu and the province of Bohol together with the municipalities of Batuan and Lila were recognized for their Good Nutrition Practices and Projects during the recent Regional Nutrition Awarding Ceremony held last 08 August 2014 at Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino, Cebu City.

Bohol Province with their “Purok System Nutrition Initiative”, which aims to bring nutrition services close to the grassroots, raised the bar of nutrition program management by giving purok officials the responsibility to manage the purok’s nutritional status. Overall, the project has contributed to Bohol province’ goal of reducing under nutrition, with its decline from 6.26% in 2011 to 5.29 in 2013.

Cebu City with their “Collaborative Efforts in Addressing School Children Malnutrition” serves as an impetus for a collective effort of the different member-agencies of the Cebu City Nutrition Committee and various non-government organizations operating in the City. Implemented in all elementary schools of the City, the daily feeding program provides nutritious lunch for all of wasted and severely wasted school children by providing the schools with food stuff needed by the kids. Only on its third year, the program was able to able to rehabilitate 68.9% of the children targeted.

The municipality of Batuan, Bohol with their “Women Rural Improvement Club’s Food Processing: Dagdag Pera Para sa Nutrisyon” was a project started by the Municipal Nutrition Committee of Batuan which aims to improve the eating habits of children aside from increasing the income of women beneficiaries. The project produces vegetable cookies, muffins, and breads and uses locally produced carabao milk and these baked products are then sold to school children on a regular basis. Currently, the project changed the lives of 21 impoverished women and their families and hoped to reach out more to other women and children in the municipality.

The municipality of Lila, Bohol with “Adopt a Buntis Program” is a project that aims to provide all the needs of the would-be mothers, targeting the underprivileged women in the municipality. The program’s goal is to reduce low birth weight rates of the municipality. In its first year of program implementation, all ten beneficiaries were able to give birth to newborns with normal weight, reducing the low birth weight rate of the municipality from 9.72% in the previous year to 4.71% in 2013.

The Good Nutrition Project or Practice award is given to an LGU who has come up with sustainable project(s) or practice(s) that contributed to the improvement of the nutritional well-being of their populace.//DFB