Cebu City – The Regional Management Conference (ManCon) serves as the platform for the nutrition action officers (NAOs) and local nutrition program coordinators in Central Visayas to have a discourse on nutrition and related policies, program updates and discuss strategies to address challenges in program implementation. The conference also serves as venue to share best practices among the participating local government units. The first Regional ManCon for the year was held on 26-27 January 2023 at St. Mark Hotel, Cebu City. This was attended by 30 participants.
NNC 7 RNPC Dr. Parolita A. Mission presided the Regional ManCon while the members of the NNC 7 technical team led by NO III Nasudi G. Soluta gave program updates along nutrition policy and program planning, nutrition surveillance, nutrition information and education concerns as well as recent developments of the Tutok Kainan Supplementation Program and the Philippine Multi-sectoral Nutrition Program.
The jampacked first day session was filled with different sharing sessions on the challenges encountered by the nutrition workers in the past year. One of which was the challenge in advocating of hiring full time nutrition personnel among local chief executives. CNAO Emma F. Seville of the Cebu City then shared their strategy on how they were able to hire eight (8) full time nutrition officers and two (2) administrative staff for the nutrition program. By establishing a good relationship with their leaders and making them nutrition advocate helped them in the approval of a city ordinance to establish a nutrition office and hiring of full-time personnel for the nutrition program of the “Queen City of the South”.
In the discussion on the Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC), an in-depth review of the proposed key massages, target audience and strategies were deliberated upon by the participants. A suggestion to produce IEC materials in local dialect for ease in understanding especially among pregnant and lactating women and mothers and caregivers of children below 2 years old was put forward. According to CNPC Rodney S. Zamora of Canlaon City who was the proponent of such recommendation is that the primary movers of nutrition in the community, the barangay nutrition workers (BNSs) will be able to relate and expound more on the discussions.
The participants were also requested to conduct their provincial, city and municipal Monitoring and Evaluation of Local Level Plan Implementation (MELLPI) Pro early to be ready for the regional evaluation slated end of March 2023. They were also tasked to update the status of their Local Nutrition Action Plan’s approval, suggest LCEs who can be Nutrition Champions and nominate possible outstanding local nutrition focal persons. // DMO II Christine Lopez, RND
