Nutrition Month Culminating Activity

Yesterday was the culminating activity of our annual Nutrition Month Celebrations. I was the resource speaker of the Culminating Program. Despite the heavy rains, many students, teachers and barangay health workers still flocked to the Public Plaza to witness the simple culminating program. We were supposed to do another round of Hataw Exercise but because of the bad weather, we proceeded to the various contests instead. There was cooking contests involving all the high schools of the town. While the cookfest was going on, there was the Nutri-jingle contest. There was also a Nutrition Masscot Making contest. There was also a Nutri-speech Contest, sort of a declamation contest but with Nutrition as the theme. Meanwhile, at the Municipal Hall, the Poster Making contest and Slogan Making contest were held.

At the Rescue Center, we held the Awarding of our Well-Baby Contest which was held last Friday and conducted our Nutri-quiz, participated by high school students from various barangays. Due to the heavy rains however, many of the far-flung barangays were unable to come. The winner was from Barangay East, a student of Our Lady of Lourdes High School. It was a close fight, with the winner ahead by one point only. The runner up was from Barangay Caningay, from Caningay High School.

Of course, while the students were competing for the quiz, my Barangay Health Workers were also answering the questions. Later, after lunch, updates on nutrition and other health concerns were given to our BHWs at the Main Health center, facilitated by our BHWF president, DOH representative and Midwife BHW Coordinator. During the update, I also shared to the BHWs my plans for September, especially our refresher course for BHWs and even our traditional birth attendants (hilots). No, we are not giving back to the hilots the obligation to conduct normal deliveries. We are still implementing the facilit-based delivery policy. But since the hilots remain influential, we will be teaching them to help identify high-risk pregnancies, teaching them to even take correct BP readings and thereby help catch pregnant patients suffering from early onset Pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia, to avoid complications.

There are so much to do with so little time left. My contract ends this October already and my hope is that before my contract ends, I would leave an area that is more self-reliant than before.