Nutrition Honor Award
MANOLO FORTICH
Leading the way to a progressive, inclusive, and well-nourished citizenry

Blessed with a climate suitable for crop production, river systems with potable water and irrigation to agricultural lands, forest areas with various floras and faunas in the Mt. Kitanglad Range and mineral deposits, Manolo Fortich set its sights on becoming one of the most competitive municipalities in the country. 

Guided by its vision-mission of becoming a progressive community with happy, peace-loving and responsible citizenry through promotion of general welfare of the people and poverty alleviation, the local government of Manolo Fortich embarked on a journey to advance the nutritional well-being of its constituents. In the last twelve years, the municipality implemented fifteen (15) special projects that support good governance, environment, health, nutrition, education, and culture. Several of which are considered nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-enabling projects:

1. Serbisyo Tunghaan. Provision of support to learners in the formal and alternative education system in the form of school supplies, hygiene kits as well as hygiene, dental and supplementary feeding to promote and contribute to better school performance.
2. Real Quality Public Service. Conduct of weekly service caravan to deliver social welfare, agriculture, health, nutrition and other services at the barangay. A joint barangay and municipal session is also conducted to discuss and address the concerns of the barangay.
3. Revitalized Quest Toward Total Community Development. With the objective of empowering the citizens to participate in community development, local government employees including volunteers such as Barangay Nutrition Scholars were provided trainings on leadership, governance, and volunteerism. These trained personnel are then tasked to organize the various sectors and encourage them to participate in community development.
4. Utanan sa tugkaran, livestock dispersal and organic farming. Three of the fifteen special projects are related to food production targeting households and farmers to augment household food supply and incomes.
5. Hataw Manolo. This was created in support of the various sports and fitness activities in the municipality. The local government provides sports equipment and opportunities such as local government events to promote participation in sports and healthy lifestyle activities.

Apart from the special projects implemented in the last twelve years, the 2019 local nutrition program of Manolo Fortich is highlighted by strong performance interventions addressing the triple burden of malnutrition such as dietary supplementation, micronutrient supplementation and management of overweight and obesity. \

The municipality reported 100% accomplishment in the dietary supplementation of nutritionally at- risk mothers and severely stunted children 6-23 months, and 100% accomplishment in the provision of micronutrient supplementation for pregnant women, children 6-59 months and female adolescent learners. Various sports and healthy lifestyle activities in schools and in the entire municipality were also conducted. These include Hataw, Zumba, Basketball and Volleyball Tournament, Enduro Bike Challenge, Amateur Boxing Tournament, Weight Loss Challenge and Municipal Fun Run.

The use of LED screens in public gymnasiums in information dissemination is also a noteworthy strategy in nutrition information dissemination, in addition to the posting of traditional information, education and communication (IEC) materials, and airing nutrition information through radio stations.

The journey of Manolo Fortich towards a well-nourished citizenry was worth all the efforts and resources in the last twelve years, resulting in a decreasing trend in all forms of malnutrition among preschool and school children, and keeping it below public health significance. Stunting prevalence among preschool children in 2019 was at 8.08%, wasting was at 2.58%, and overweight and obesity was 0.65%. Prevalence of wasting and overweight among school children in 2019 were at 2.42% and 0.49%, respectively.

Consistency, sustainability, and innovation in the nutrition program of Manolo Fortich in the last twelve years definitely led the way to a well-nourished and progressive citizenry and thus, nothing less than worthy of the 2019 Nutrition Honor Award!

Written by:
Ms. Jasmine Anne DF. Tandingan, RND, MPM
Nutrition Officer III
National Nutrition Council

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