SORSOGON CITY -- To address the high prevalence of stunting and wasting among children aged six (6) months to 23 months old, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), National Nutrition Council (NNC) and Salvacion Farmers Development Cooperative (SAFADECO) have joined forces to launch the “Tutok Kainan” Supplementation Program (TKSP) in Sorsogon.
TKSP is a complementation of Nutrition-Specific with nutrition-sensitive interventions focusing on the first 1000 days of a child's life by improving the quality and increasing the quantity of food and nutrient intakes among nutritionally at-risk children.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officier II Nida A. Santiago said TKSP covers the whole province of Sorsogon and is composed of fourteen (14) local government units (LGUs) and one Component City, and is being implemented under the Enhanced Partnership against Hunger and Poverty (EPaHP).
She said the project area covers two hundred eighty-five (285) barangays with a total of one thousand three hundred sixty-seven (1,367) children ages six (6) to twenty-three (23) months old.
“This kind of engagement with institutional buyers provides an incentive to our ARBs and the ARBOs to produce their respective crops since there is a ready market,” Santiago said.
Santiago shared that with the health and safety restrictions due to the present pandemic, the DAR provincial office in Sorsogon take courage in the belief that the agencies, organizations and people involved in this program share a meaningful responsibility for the children, the ARBs, ARBOs, the future generations and the community, as a whole.
Regional Nutrition Program Coordinator Ms. Arlene R. Reario, a registered nutritionist dietician (RND) emphasized that this program is a sustainable manner to improve the nutritional status and to address malnutrition among infants and young children from zero to two years old—the critical period in which they are at risk to irreversible damage to cognitive and physical development, as well as to ensure optimal growth and development of infants and young children, and to prevent the intergenerational effects of stunting.
