US-based relief organization pledges support for Moro children

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Local officials were elated with how the city government’s human security initiatives are gaining headway with the continuing support of benefactors, among them the Samaritan’s Purse.

The Samaritan’s Purse, which is based in Boone, North Carolina in the United States of America, is engaged in humanitarian missions around the world for over three decades now.

Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi and a senior official of the Samaritan’s Purse, Selwyn Swamidoss, met here Tuesday and agreed to continue cooperating in relief projects benefiting children in the city.

Personnel of the Samaritan’s Purse came in only this year but are now operating an intricate network of community service facets benefiting children in many villages, established faster than city officials had expected.

The non-government organization has since been providing nutrition and sanitation interventions to children’s day care centers and public schools in the city.

Halima Satol-Ibrahim, chief information officer of the city government, said Swamidoss had told Guiani-Sayadi, during their meeting Tuesday, they are to expand soon their relief missions here.

She said the mayor acknowledged the presence of different foreign humanitarian entities in the city, among them outfits of the United Nations, as a vote of confidence to her administration’s domestic human security and community empowerment efforts.

The city is also the operation center of the International Monitoring Team, which helps oversee the ceasefire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The transnational peacekeeping contingent is comprised of soldiers from Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, and civilian conflict-resolution experts from Japan and Norway.

The Samaritan’s Purse had constructed hand washing facilities and latrines in many daycare centers in the city in recent months. It is also advocating for breastfeeding of infants by mothers.

Guiani-Sayadi told Swamidoss the projects here of the Samaritan Purse gave their bid for Malacañang’s recognition as a child-friendly city a big boost.

Cotabato City was named early this year by the national government as the nation’s second most child-friendly city under the independent city category of the contest