Hunger and malnutrition. Those are two problems that push many governments around the world to work overtime.  And even with non-government organizations (NGOs) joining initiatives to fight hunger and malnutrition, much still needs to be done.

Millie L. Kilayko, from Bacolod City, chose the ambitious advocacy to feed the hungry and nurture the malnourished in a country where poverty is prevalent, as her lifetime work.

INTRODUCING MINGO -- In a shoreline community in Negros Occidental, Ms. Millie Kilayko introduces Mingo Meals to children.

Ms. Kilayko heads the Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation (NVC), which started to work on those problems ever since it was established 13 years ago.  Since then, Ms. Kilayko’s days, and often nights too, have been filled with planning and implementing projects to involve government and private individuals to sponsor feeding programs.

Today, a small pack of a nutritious meal named “Mingo Meal” represents Ms. Kilayko’s – and NVC’s –contribution to the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

Mingo is a pack of instant food made of rice, mongo (mung beans, and malunggay (moringa). Mixing it with water creates a delicious porridge.  Oftentimes, children eat the contents straight out of the pack.  Recently, the same Mingo mixture has been made into cookies and ice cream.

23 MILLION MINGO MEALS AND COUNTING

The Mingo counter in the NVC website records as of Feb. 28, 2023, over 23 million Mingo Meals served, and 52,022 children enrolled in the Mingo Meals nutrition program. Incidentally, Mingo meals have also been distributed to children at evacuation centers in areas affected by natural disaster.

MOTORCYCLE RIDER -- Millie Kilayko and volunteers ride motorcycles to reach a community in a mountain in Bukidnon to check on malnourished children who survived on a piece of cassava a day.

NVC, with local government units and private donors, distribute Mingo to malnourished children in Negros, Iloilo and Bukidnon in Mindanao where the feeding programs also record each child’s health status.  Ms. Kilayko takes personal interest in checking the communities where Mingo Meals are needed, hiking for hours and riding at the back of motorcycles to reach isolated areas in Bukidnon and Negros island.

The Mingo Meal’s recipe was introduced by the Food Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology and was tweaked by NVC to include moringa (malunggay), and other ingredients.  It is manufactured by the Foundation.

MINGO MEALS -- Distributing Mingo Meals to children in Marawi.

Its production now provides livelihood for local farmers who are assigned as contract growers of the Mingo ingredients. They are known as “Farmers of Hope” and NVC also provides them with new tools and updated farming techniques, crop planning and support, and market linkages.

A SCION MAKES A DIFFERENCE

It is not usual to see someone like Ms. Kilayko in this field of work.  A scion of a prominent family and educated in an all-girls school run by nuns, her reply to why she does this is simple: “I always find at least one person who is in need. That’s enough to motivate me.” For that, she has placed on hold her talents in painting and writing.

PHOTOS OF NEW FRIENDS -- After trekking the mountain trail, taking photos of the children and their parents in a Bukidnon community.

Ms. Kilayko's motivation to continue doing good has been recognized by many organizations. Recently, NVC was awarded Parangal Lingkod Sambayanan by the Ateneo for NVC Foundation's efforts "to make a difference despite their littleness, ordinariness, and powerlessness."

She also sat as a member of the board of Rise Against Hunger Philippines but resigned to fully focus on NVC.

STAR OF HOPE

Long before she was involved with NVC, Ms. Kilayko was chosen as one of the TOWNS awardees for Entrepreneurship Development in 1995 for her initiatives to uplift small entrepreneurs. In 1986, Ms. Kilayko headed the Star of Hope project in Negros Occidental, which encouraged farm workers to make collapsible Pinoy Parol (lantern) which was marketed in many countries. The project gave livelihood to farm workers who had no jobs because of the sugar crisis then.

NVC IS BORN

NVC Foundation was established in August 2010 by a group of private citizens who shared Kilayko’s social conscience.  Being in contact with the children also extended Ms. Kilayko’s views on the help the foundation can provide to the children’s families and neighbors.

In 2013, NVC introduced the Peter Project which gave motorized fishing boats to fishermen’s helpers who were earning only about P50 a day – with the contributions of generous private individuals.

A BOY AND THE PETER PROJECT

A story which Ms. Kilayko cannot forget is that of a little boy, the son of a fisherman, who she encountered in 2013 while looking for a recipient of a motorized fishing boat from among fishermen’s helpers.  All morning, she interviewed several helpers and their wives but failed to find a recipient. When they were about to leave, she noticed an innocent-looking boy.

“I noticed a little boy who had been trailing me all along, and he refused to leave my side. I asked him what he wanted. He said he didn’t want to let me go until I interview his father who was still out at sea. “What about your mother?” I asked.  “She left my father for another man,” the boy answered.

COOKING LUNCH -- Hermie's three children, with the eldest son cooking lunch.

The little boy invited her to his home where he had to cook for his younger siblings.

“He had no money for firewood or charcoal so he searched for anything around him that he could use. He found a few pieces of styrofoam and the biting fumes hurt our eyes but apparently the three children were so accustomed to that it did not seem to affect them. Lunch was just a small pot of rice, and nothing else. They ate with their hands and drank water from tin cans recovered from someone else’s trash,” she described the scene.

At that point, Kilayko had already decided that the family would get a fishing boat.

'I DO NOT HAVE A DREAM'

When the father came home, she asked him: “Do you have a dream?”

Ms. Kilayko expected him to say: "I dream of owning a boat of my own,” and she expected to answer him, “Lo and behold, you will have a boat.”

PETER PROJECT -- The Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation president  on the shores of Tacloban with 50 fishing boats for the community in 2014.

But the man, Hermie, instead replied: “I don’t have a dream.”

“And I realized that when a man was [as] poor as Hermie, he ceases to feel like a human being. He only lives to eat and sleep and eat and sleep, and they do not have dreams. It was one of the few moments in my life when I was speechless,” she said.

She said Hermie, his family and fellow fishermen, are the inspirations who motivate her to keep pursuing her advocacies.

HELPING OTHERS IS A FAMILY TRADITION

Helping others was not a decision for Ms. Kilayko, it’s part of her nature.

She grew up seeing acts of kindness directed to the poor around her. Her mother religiously visited an old people’s home for the indigents and helped in various ways. Her grandmother who had a green thumb, grew plants that were popular, sold them, and gave 100 percent of the earnings to charity. And her grandfather, the former CEO of a large company in Negros Occidental, donated his retirement fund to support Project Foresight, a research study that created a master development plan that designed railway networks, diversification plans, and urban development that were ahead of his time.

MEETING WITH THE COMMUNITY in a mountain village.

What continues to inspire her to help the poor?

“Every day I encounter someone – old or young, new acquaintance or old – who influences me.  Very hard to pinpoint a particular person as each one, along the way, influences an aspect of my life.” (Patricia Dela Roca)