Cebu City – Through the first Regional Nutrition Committee-Technical Working Group (RNC-TWG) meeting held on Friday 20 January 2023 at MJ Hotel and Suites, the reinforcement of nutrition specific, sensitive, and enabling programs, projects, and activities (PPAs) among the agencies are put into place in their 2023 plans.
Reiterated during the meeting attended by 35 participants were the different activities of the group, among those are the members’ formulation of nutrition policies to give a push on the local implementation of the Tutok Kainan Program, their participation in the upcoming annual Monitoring and Evaluation of Local Level Plan Implementation (MELLPI) Pro, advocacy visits to the new regional directors and newly elected local chief executive, among others.
RNC-TWG vice-chair Ms. Cheryl Dela Victoria of the Department of Agriculture RFO 7 also invited the NNC 7 secretariat on their upcoming training on basic news writing and video editing to further improve the region’s efforts on nutrition advocacy through different online and offline platforms.
Raised during the discussion of the Committee’s workplan is their regular monitoring of the urban garden, where the vice-chair also proposed that the activity will be in collusion with the department’s National Urban and Peri-Urban Agricultue Program (NUPAP) program to have a more region wide coverage.
Activities of the subcommittee, the Regional Bantay Asin Task Force 7 (RBATF7) set to strengthen implementation of the ASIN Law and reactivation of the local bantay asin task forces among LGUs in Central Visayas. One task among the members is to collect salt samples in their respective areas, and during the conduct of MELLPI Pro among the visited LGUs. The samples are then collected by the NNC 7 secretariat to be sent to the Department of Science Technology for testing.
The TWG members are also requested to utilize the 2022 Operation Timbang Plus (OPT) data during their planning of nutrition specific and sensitive PPAs in their respective agencies. Members are also asked to participate in the upcoming 49th Nutrition Month activities. These are only some of the activities planned by the technical body of the RNC which will surely make the hands of the members full in the coming months for the people of Central Visayas to have improved access to quality nutrition and nutrition-sensitive services. // DMO II Christine Lopez, RND
