A parish in the northern Philippines has been feeding needy and malnourished children for 120 days.
The St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Santiago City's Barangay (village) Rizal, in the province of Isabela's Diocese of Ilagan, conducts the feeding program.
"It is a 120-day feeding program to ensure the health of the underweight poor children. We provide two dishes (viand) and fruit during lunchtime," Father Ronald Nolasco Factor, OFM, assistant parish priest, and bursar, told RVA News.
St. Francis of Assisi Parish is a Franciscan mission. It is one of 39 parishes in the Diocese of Ilagan.
The feeding program was launched last year. This is the second year of the feeding program, which has 30 underweight children.
This year, the feeding started in February and will end in July.
"Everyone needs healthy food. So, we organize this feeding program to help underweight children improve their health," explained Fr. Factor. "By doing this little act of kindness, we can make a change in their lives. We want to improve these children's health so they can focus on their studies."
Last year. It was held in the covered court of the village council, where the children live. The parish is holding it at the school this year because the beneficiaries are students.
The message behind the feeding program is that they need to be healthy children.
Besides, the parish holds a faith formation and catechism class for children before feeding.
"We want to also help the parents by giving them formation, but the majority of the parents are working. So far, it’s not possible," Fr. Factor said.
There are 20 volunteers to assist in the program.
The parish will celebrate its 10th anniversary this coming October 2023.
One modest effort to address stunting (low height for age) and malnutrition in the nation is the feeding program run by St. Francis of Assisi Parish.
A third of children in the Philippines are stunted. According to UNICEF, the nation is one of the ten with the most stunted children in the world and ranks sixth among East Asian and Pacific countries with the highest frequency of stunting.
With a prevalence of 33%, stunting in the Philippines is mostly a result of unequal access to nourishing food, prolonged hunger, and a lack of nutrition. Stunted growth is a result of the body's inability to grow linearly due to poor health. - Santosh Digal
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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