Give P65,000 to raise healthy kids

Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro, Senator Edgardo J. Angara and Health Secretary Enrique Ona hold different nutritious vegetables at the launch of the multisectoral Oh My Gulay! Campaign.

It is a simple enough advocacy with intentions that are noble, and the cause, valid. Its goal is clear: To help eradicate the rising incidence of malnutrition among Filipino preschool children.

The Oh My Gulay! (OMG!) advocacy of Senator Edgardo Angara continues to fight head on against malnutrition, despite the difficulties it has encountered since it was conceptualized in 2009.

The lack of funds, not to mention the insinuations thrown against it that the project was just a political move on the part of the senator, had then hampered what could have been a more successful project involving intensive education campaigns and vegetable planting activities.

Josie E. Paule, executive director of Oh My Gulay! (OMG!), says in an interview with Inquirer’s SundayBiz, that the senator steadfastly believes that vegetables may be the key to addressing the issue of malnutrition in the country.

To prove her point that vegetables can indeed be the solution to this “hidden hunger,” Paule cites the disparity in malnutrition incidences in the different parts of the country. It showed that the provinces that are large vegetable producers recorded the lower figures in malnutrition.

“In the Ifugao province, which is a rich source of vegetables, only 4 out of 100 children are malnourished because they eat mostly vegetables. While in Negros Occidental, in Cadiz and Kabangkalan City in particular, almost 34 percent of the school children are malnourished,” Paule shares.

Nationwide, Paule reveals that an alarming 26 out of every 100 preschool children in the Philippines were considered malnourished by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI). This was because fruits and vegetables comprised a marginal four percent of a Filipino child’s diet, she adds.

Milk and milk products consumption stood at 38.2 percent, while cereal and cereal products comprised 30.1 percent of a child’s diet. The remaining percentage was divided among sugar, meat, fish, starchy roots and tubers, eggs, beans, nuts and seeds.

These are the statistics that OMG! wanted to change. As such, OMG! continues to go around the country to educate and encourage more children not only to eat vegetables but to also plant these in their backyards.

To reach its intended target audience, OMG! advocates have partnered with the government, the private sector and a number of schools to better educate Filipino children about the benefits of vegetables.

“As a first step, we talked with the Department of Education to make the OMG! advocacy a part of the curriculum and be able to reach out to the children who are starting school,” Paule explains.

PRINT, Internet and TV ads were showcased for the multimedia advertising campaign of Oh My Gulay!

The program, according to Paule, is being incorporated in the Science and Hele (home economics and livelihood education) subjects, wherein students will be taught to plant, grow and appreciate the nutritional value of common Filipino vegetables such as kalabasa (squash), talbos ng kamote (sweet potato tops), patola (sponge gourd), sitaw (string beans), kamatis (tomato) and ampalaya (bitter gourd).

These vegetables were popularized on TV and radio by celebrities like Anne Curtis, Sarah Geronimo, Cristine Reyes, Mark Bautista and Sam Pinto who advocated OMG! in a tri-media campaign launched earlier this year.

For 2011, the goal is to spread the OMG! advocacy to 40 schools nationwide through the “Vegetable School Gardening” in tandem with the private sector and the DepEd.

BDO Foundation, Asian Terminals Inc, Sunwest Care Foundation, Infant Pediatrics and Nutrition Association of the Philippines (IPNAP) and Aboitiz Foundation are adopting a total of 40 public elementary schools across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Implementing partner East West Seed Co. will provide the seeds and technical know-how on modern vegetable farming.

The donors will provide funds for the establishment of vegetable plots in their chosen schools, to be planted with common vegetables. Each school under this program would need P65,000 to implement the activities, Paule says.

These companies, she explains, will add to the growing number of donors that have since supported OMG! In the near future, OMG! is also looking at partnering with private schools, out of school youth, orphan communities and Gawad Kalinga as well.

“That’s what we aim to do, to engage the school children and then eventually, for the parents to be also part of the program,” Paule says, adding that parents will be allowed to help the kids in their planting tasks during weekends.

Should there be excess produce, parents also have the option to sell these and use the money to buy more seeds.

“Our vision is to get children healthy and the public schools to use excess lands to plant. We want to lessen malnutrition and to change children’s attitude on vegetable. OMG! believes that if children see it as an activity that’s fun to do-fun to plant—they will enjoy eating vegetables more,” Paula concludes.

The school gardening program also includes the training of teachers in the nutritional benefits of vegetables through an instructional module to be included in their home economics lesson.  East West Seed Co. is OMG’s implementing partner, at the frontlines of making this vision a reality by providing technical expertise in modern vegetable farming.

According to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute, 26 out of every 100 school-age children in the country are malnourished. The most common forms of malnutrition are vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

The OMG advocacy program, a brainchild of Angara, seeks to battle this “hidden hunger” not only by creating greater awareness about the wonders vegetable consumption, but also by empowering children, their schools and their families to produce and enjoy their own vitamin- and mineral-rich vegetables.

“Our educational system is already beset with so many problems. We lack funds, facilities, and skilled teachers. But we cannot allow ourselves to neglect one fundamental cause of the dwindling quality of education: Malnutrition in schoolchildren.” said Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture. “We cannot ignore the obvious link between nutrition and education.”