Nourishing Minds: Enhancing learning through nutrition at Macasandig National High School

AVRF is pleased to announce its partnership for learners’ nutrition with Macasandig National High School in Cagayan de Oro City. Since March 2024, this school feeding program has provided 51 students who are malnourished or severely malnourished with a nutritious meal on a weekly basis. Healthy meals reduce nutrient deficiency, support physical and cognitive development, and encourage healthy habits in the future. These meals also help improve students’ academic performance and attendance and increase their focus and motivation in school.

Thus far, meals from the program include protein such as chicken, pork, or fish, mixed vegetables, fruits, juice, and rice. One of the students, Bea, noted that the food provided through the school was delicious. Another student, Judah, said that she feels healthier from the program’s food.

The program contributes to an environment conducive to learning, helping students to nourish both their bodies and minds. AVRF is happy to participate in this partnership to equip students at Macasandig National High School to reach their potential, both mentally and physically.

Providing medicine to the Manobo-Pulangiyon tribe

There is a saying that goes, “A merry heart cures like a medicine but a broken heart dries-up the bones.” This is an apt saying for the Manobo-Pulangiyon tribe’s thousands of families. They have been ousted from their 1,111-hectare ancestral domain, where their ancestors are buried, by a powerful corporation that has transformed their ancestral domain into massive plantations for export crops.

In the last six years, the tribe has been living in extreme poverty under shattered tents along the highway, eating only once a day. All the children are malnourished and sickly as they drink in the nearby river where they swim. Every night, the children have to be tied up so that they would not go out to the highway while their parents are sleeping. Five children have already been hit by running cars.

The Bright Horizons Caregiving Hub Technical School capacitates young Filipinos to be caregivers to exemplify love and service to the aged, the children and the sick. Many have already graduated from the 5-month training course. Some have gone abroad working as caregivers.

As part of their training and assessment, students are exposed to the problems of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs). They treat those who are afflicted with all kinds of diseases, and provide food to the malnourished children. The trainees also understand the need to liberate the IPs from so much poverty and oppression. The Bright Horizon’s Chief Executive Officer, Madam Gregoria “Maam Neng” Calva-Salon, has also seen the need to train young IPs to become caregivers themselves for their tribe.

Thus, on June 21, 2023, some fifty caregiving students of the Bright Horizons, led by Maam Neng and her husband Eng. Teodorico H. Salon, conducted a medical mission with vitamins and medicine provided by the Amada and Vicente Ravanera Foundation. Not only did Bright Horizons provide the much needed treatment of the sick children and adults but also provided food, and clothing and slippers, courtesy of Ms. Myrna Gatilogo and some student-donors.