Kraft Foods and Save the Children Nutrition Intervention Program Reveal Milestones from Second Year.
MANILA, Philippines - Started in 2009, FRESH Philippines is a partnership between Kraft Foods Philippines and Save the Children. It aims to help improve access to and knowledge about proper nutrition. Recently, FRESH Philippines’ Year 2 results showed just how the program is living up to its name by helping provide food to families.
FRESH is Future Resilience and Stronger Households Philippines, a nutrition availability and education platform. It is currently supporting 19 urban and rural barangays which have low nutritional levels - Parañaque, Metro Manila; San Remigio, Antique; and Lake Sebu, South Cotabato.
Kraft Foods globally aims to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition. FRESH Philippines is just one way in which Kraft Foods fulfils its higher purpose to make today delicious. By partnering with Save the Children, Kraft Foods brings this mission to life and helps ensure that hunger and malnutrition do not plague its beneficiary communities.
More than 16,000 children have access to food
FRESH Philippines ensures that children and their families have immediate and continued access to food. This the program accomplishes by conducting feeding programs for children in schools and providing families with the means to grow and buy their own food.
To date, FRESH Philippines has reached 16,298 children through feeding programs in schools. The project supported 1,099 families by helping them set up household and community gardens where they can have easy access to food. An additional 357 families were supported with livelihood opportunities to generate more income for their needs.
A Lifetime of Nutritious Eating
Access to food is only the first step. Encouraging healthy-eating behaviours is the next and more difficult second phase. How do you encourage families to provide the right nutrition for their children? By informing them just how important proper nutrition is not just for health, but for their children’s future.
FRESH Philippines has been doing just that through behavior change activities and seminars which promote health, nutrition and hygiene. During the past two years 15,563 children have been involved in these activities together with their parents. To give them a head start to a healthy life, 34,557 children have also been given de-worming treatments and micronutrient supplements.
Raising Children Together
FRESH Philippines’ mission is to engage the community to also take an active part in alleviating hunger and malnutrition. The program leverages government funding to increase the reach of its activities. FRESH Philippines also works with government units to create nutrition councils which further promote nutrition at the barangay and city level.
Proving that alleviating hunger is everybody’s concern, FRESH Philippines has so far encouraged funding from local government units amounting to $200,000.
The Real Change We Need
FRESH Philippines has garnered various awards over the past two years for facilitating positive change in the lives of children. Among these are from: The Asian Corporate Responsibility Awards for Best Poverty Alleviation Program and from InterAction for Best Practices and Innovations Award on Rural Livelihoods and Agriculture. With the city government of Parañaque, FRESH Philippines received recognition from the Global Forum on Urbanization and Health held in Kobe, Japan for its community garden projects.
Although, these figures and awards only take second place to the real contributions of the program. As of today, 17% of Grades 1-3 students included in the feeding program have improved school attendance. Among families, there was an 8.7% decrease of those who suffered involuntary hunger. Furthermore, 58 children who were suffering from severe or moderate malnutrition, a serious state that puts their lives at risk, now show dramatic improvements in nutritional status.
Through the partnership of Kraft Foods and Save the Children, more children are learning in school, more families don’t feel hunger anymore and more children can grow up to their full potential. Imagine, this much change was created with the simplest yet noblest intentions of giving proper nutrition for a brighter future.
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