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SONA 1
Source: www.exchange-rates.org
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day
provided by The Free Dictionary
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FEEDING
THE BODY AND THE MIND It had been almost a month since I was home from the city, and this time I was taking a day off to visit with my family and because of a new initiative that CARE is involved in. June 15, 2009. The day started out cloudy, there was a bit of a drizzle, but the sun was trying to pierce through the clouds. The weather was a little unpredictable at this time of the year, nonetheless one could feel the humid air.
At 9:00 o’clock in the morning, my sister MICHELLE, XIAMINA
ALGER, and I went to the Gelacio Allones Memorial Elementary School in
Barangay Binalud. The event was the launching of a feeding program
spearheaded and organized by Tito DOOY and Tita ELVIE CASORLA, of the Alli
Resource Development Corporation, in partnership with the school’s
teaching staff and the parents-teachers association, and CARE. At the
school we were joined by CARE volunteers SHEENA MARIE ALZATE, JUNELYN
BUHAY LOREIGA, and JUVY ANIOG. When we arrived, I saw a group of women cooking something in a huge caldero on a makeshift kitchen outside the school building. Actually, one could hardly call it a kitchen; it was simply a scaffolding of a sort that was held up by bamboo posts. The stove was improvised from a steel plank that served as the kalan; nearby was a table where the women cut the veggies on a wooden cutting board.
The menu du jour was arroz caldo, which
delighted me because I love the dish, especially with native chicken as
sahog. However, the cooks gave it a twist by adding mashed
kalabasa (squash) and leaves of malunggay. Now this was
something out of the ordinary for me! Understandably, since this is a
nutrition feeding program, squash is good for healthy eyesight and
malunggay is a good source of calcium and vitamin C. I wish the
teachers had mentioned these food benefits to the young children. When everything was ready at around 10:00 AM, which was the children’s recess time, together with the mothers who helped prepare the meal, we served the arroz caldo to the children. Feeding was done simultaneously for the 100 kids from Kindergarten to Grade 2 who are the beneficiaries of the program. First we checked on the Kinder 1 and 2 classroom presided by Teacher RACHEL EMBATE. I thought some of the kids (ages 5 – 6) were a little small for their age. We told the children that if they finish their arroz caldo, they would be given frozen milk bars as reward; if they couldn’t, sorry, they won’t have any. When a little girl cried, we thought it was because she did not want to eat. It turned out that she forgot to bring her cup and spoon (as previously instructed); the teacher lent her a set of cutlery and she stopped crying.
The children’s reactions were written all over their faces. Some were
delighted because they liked arroz caldo, others seemed to force
themselves to eat it because they wanted to be rewarded with a dessert,
and still others, it was not hard to figure out, were simply hungry.
Whatever reason was going through their young minds (if indeed they were
processing the experience at all), their eyes said they were happy that we
were there. Or so I thought, anyway. We proceeded to check on the Grade 1 classroom presided by Teacher MYRAVIC ALIPAT. Some children were finishing their arroz caldo, others were starting to eat their milk bars. One child got our attention. The little boy melted his milk bar, poured it over his bottled water, shook the bottle, and drank the concoction as if it were bottled milk. We laughed at his culinary creativity! Teacher RUBY AMBUT supervised the feeding of the Grade 2 students. After eating, the children cleaned their cups and spoons.
Before we wrapped up the simple event that day, we toured the
campus of the Gelacio Allones Memorial Elementary School. We checked its
“Nutrition Center,” where two women were selling candies, chocolates,
biscuits, and kakanin (native cakes) like suman latik. Piso-piso
was the prevailing currency, it is what the students could afford for
snacks. One could only wonder how much “nutrition” can be had for one
peso. The school principal was not available, so it was Mrs. EVELINA ALGARJA, the Head Teacher, who accommodated us for this event. She was very welcoming and gracious; she was glad GAMES was a pilot school of sorts for a feeding program. The Feed the Kids Program will run for five 5 days a week throughout the school year.
While this was going on, I couldn’t help but recall the days I spent in
the Day Care School when I was five or six years old and we were living in
Alta Tierra. It was not so much the things I was supposed to learn inside
the classroom, since most of the time I would hide from my teacher, but
the snacks they served us during the recess. I remember vividly that I
would enter the classroom only if they served corn polvoron. Ahhh
. . . the taste still lingers in my mind. The funny part about that day
care ritual was that I shared the polvoron with a cousin, and my
sister Michelle, who would come and visit me at the school, would instruct
me to come back for more. In days when they would serve nilugaw, I
would rather skip class and go home. Like most kids, I didn’t know any
better, certainly nothing about nutrition. The launching of the feeding program is another milestone for CARE. It is happy to support the Casorlas, the teaching staff at GAMES, and the parents and children of Barangay Binalud. It hopes that it will encourage other Alimodiananons to initiate a similar undertaking in other barangay schools in Alimodian. It is CARE’s firm belief that as it helps feed the minds of the children through its book-lending, reading, and mentoring programs, it is equally important that it helps feed their bodies. ************* Since the launching, the program has received donations to buy cups, spoons, and other utensils. Moreover, efforts are underway to build an extension of the HE room to serve as a kitchen for the feeding program. Anyone who likes to help can contact CARE c/o Leila Caparanga Amarra or Michelle Ann Loredo; Dooy and Elvie Casorla; and the teaching staff and PTA of the Gelacio Allones Memorial Elementary School in Brgy. Binalud. We thank IFEDCO for donating the milk bars during the launching, the CARE volunteers, Dooy and Elvie Casorla, the teaching staff and PTA of GAMES, and the donors to the program.
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FRIENDS of CARE (2010) VICTORIA INCIONG
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