FINDING ANSWERS
The Children’s First One Thousand Days Coalition (CFDC) will hold a pre-Valentine concert to raise funds for non-government organizations that implement a nutrition program in barangays to help government address malnutrition of Filipino infants from conception to their second birthday.
The dinner concert dubbed “The Greatest Love of All” is on Feb. 9 at the Tent City of The Manila Hotel. I’ll be singing together with former Press Secretary Mike Toledo and former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
Other performers are Beverly Salviejo, Bobby Alvarez, Jeffrey Panado, Rachelle Rule, Egay Banaag, Niña Campos, Egay Rubiano, Jenny Sugay, Rachel Verns, and Pam Esquivel. We will be accompanied by the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Rodel Colmenar and the overall direction of George Tagle-Sison and Paul Dizon.
The CFDC launched recently an operations manual on how NGOs, together with DILG, DOH, and DSWD, can help achieve the objective of RA 11148 or the “Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Magnanay Act” which calls for a whole-of-government approach, in collaboration with civil society organizations and the private sector, to fight malnutrition plaguing the Filipino mother and child.
NGOs that implement the nutrition program in barangays, in cooperation with the barangay government, will receive 40 percent of ticket sales and sponsorships they generate for the concert, upon submission of a project proposal based on the CFDC operations manual. Whatever is left of net proceeds will be used to organize NGO coalitions all over the country and lend support to other NGOs needing further assistance for their nutrition projects.
CFDC member organizations include Rotary International, Lions Club International, Kiwanis International, Junior Chamber International, The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Philippines, The Fraternal Order of Eagles - Philippine Eagles, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Rizal, Save the Children Philippines, World Vision Philippines, Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals, Philippine League of Government and Private Midwives, Crusade Against Violence, and many more.
In tandem with government, the CFDC was formed to confront a serious problem troubling our nation: malnutrition during a child’s first 1,000 days of life – a very crucial period when the impact of poor nutrition can be profound, long-lasting, even irreversible.
RA 11148 entitled “An Act Scaling Up the National and Local Health and Nutrition Programs Through a Strengthened Integrated Strategy for Maternal, Neonatal, Child Health and Nutrition in the First One Thousand Days of Life” was passed in 2018.
The law calls on government to scale up nutrition intervention programs in the first thousand days – from conception to the child’s second birthday – and allocates resources in a sustainable manner to improve the nutritional status of infants, adolescent females, pregnant and lactating women, and ensure the growth and development of infants and toddlers.
Brain development starts long before birth of the child, and progresses at astonishing speed very early on during the mother’s pregnancy. In just 16 days after conception, the brain’s neural tube forms and by seven months, the form of the brain resembles that of an adult.
Throughout brain development inside the womb, a mother’s diet and her stored nutrients are the only source of nutrition needed for the creation of new neurons which are “the cells that form the tissue that transmits and receives nervous impulses.”
“Nutrients also fuel the formation of synapses, which provide the basis for learning ability. When a mother lacks adequate calories, protein, fatty acids or key micronutrients in her pregnancy, these vital neurodevelopmental processes can be impaired,” according to a study titled “The role of nutrition in cognitive development” published in the Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
“The persistence of very high levels of childhood undernutrition, despite decades of economic growth and poverty reduction, could lead to a staggering loss of the country’s human and economic potential,” the World Bank (WB) has said about the Philippines.
UNICEF Philippines said that malnutrition in the first 1,000 days is associated with poorer performance in school as brain development has been affected, and malnourished children are more likely to get sick and miss classes.
Our future as a country will certainly be bleak if we fail to solve undernutrition/malnutrition. Science has shown that a large number of child deaths (95 a day according to UNICEF), prevalence of various diseases, low IQ, stunting, and low economic productivity are the dire consequences of this crisis. In our region and throughout the world, our country ranks quite poorly on the aforementioned indicators.
As national project chairman of CFDC, I urge all our civic organizations and NGOs to “walk the talk” and implement the necessary nutrition program in their own clubs, businesses, and adopted barangays, and to ensure the success of the concert.
Together, and in cooperation with the government, we can minimize, if not eliminate, the menace of malnutrition, in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. Hopefully, by or before 2034, our children born within the decade will be a new breed of "Brighter, Stronger, Taller" Filipinos. ([email protected])