NGO provides feeding program for Payatas kids

MANILA, Philippines - The Wong Chu King Foundation (WCKF), a non-government organization (NGO) providing assistance to the poor, has partnered with the University of the Philippines Law Class of 1978 to finance the feeding of malnourished children in Barangay Payatas, Quezon City.

The funds will go to a feeding center of the Payatas Orione Foundation Inc. (PAOFI), an NGO implementing health, nutrition and education programs for children and tuberculosis patients from Payatas and Lucena City and Mauban in Quezon.

Under the memorandum of agreement, one nutritious meal per day will be provided for 75 children in one of PAOFI’s feeding centers in Payatas for one year.

The meal includes a therapeutic food supplement found to be effective for malnourished and tuberculosis patients.

The supplement, which can be spread on bread or mixed with rice, consists of peanut butter paste, coconut oil, soya, micronutrients, multivitamins, sugar and powdered milk.

James Vincent Navarette, WCKF general manager; Fr. Martin Mroz, PAOFI executive director, and lawyer Antonio Ocampo, representative of UP Law Class of 1978, signed the partnership during ceremonies held recently at the WCKF office on Sultana street, Makati City.

“ PAOFI’s program aims to ensure that the children will achieve their normal weight within a year from enrolling in the program,” said Mroz, an Argentinian priest.

“The foundation aims to establish an average weight gain of two kilos above the normal level of nourishment for each child and impart knowledge to participating parents in the preparation of nutritious and balanced food,”  he added.

The PAOFI maintains two clinics for tuberculosis patients; 11 feeding centers for malnourished children, including eight in Payatas and three in the Badjao settlement in Barangay Dalahican and Talao-Talao in Lucena City, and a number of learning centers.