CDO-Foodsphere partners with Jollibee to fight malnutrition

MANILA, Philippines - CDO-Foodsphere Inc. has thrown its support behind Jollibee Foods Corp.’s advocacy to improve the nutritional status of undernourished students at public elementary schools in Valenzuela City.

Odyssey Foundation Inc. (OFI), the corporate social responsibility arm of CDO-Foodsphere, recently signed a memorandum of agreement with Jollibee Group Foundation Inc. (JGF) to support the latter’s “Busog, Lusog, Talino (BLT)” school feeding program.

The BLT program is a comprehensive feeding and parents’ education program implemented for 136 school days per school year for the benefit of elementary school pupils in the first and second grades.

JGF, in partnership with Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), implements the BLT program in support of the vision to contribute to the mitigation of hunger among Grade 1 and 2 pupils in elementary schools. 

ACED is an area implementing partner (AIP) for the school feeding program.

JGF executive director Gisela Tiongson said the foundation envisions that every Filipino is able to access basic community services and live a life defined by dignity, purpose and active participation in nation-building.

Hunger and under-nutrition have been blamed for the low school attendance and high dropout rates among affected young students in public schools. 

According to the Department of Education (DepEd), 562,262 students in public kindergarten and elementary schools currently enrolled this school year are “severely wasted” or malnourished.

However, the DepEd’s Health and Nutrition Center said it could feed only 42,372 school children or just 7.5 percent of the malnourished kids in 1,010 public elementary schools in 28 provinces.

Odyssey Foundation partnered with JGF in recognition of the need to improve the nutritional status of undernourished public elementary pupils and for them to have better chances of continuing their education.

“We see this partnership as a concrete and sustainable solution to address malnutrition among our children,” said Foodsphere president Jerome Ong, who is also the president of OFI.

“This is part of OFI’s continuing support to address the problem of malnutrition in the country. OFI has made supplemental feeding programs as its core initiative in its social development activities. Since 2005, OFI has helped nurture over 8,000 undernourished children through its ‘Gabay Nutrisyon’ project,” Ong said.

Under the partnership agreement, Odyssey Foundation will provide financial and technical support to implement the BLT program in selected schools. 

OFI initially granted P240,000 to support the BLT program which is expected to benefit 250 pupils in four public elementary schools in Valenzuela City.

These schools are San Miguel Heights Elementary School, Bignay Elementary School, Malinta Elementary School, and Pio Valenzuela Elementary School.

JGF, through ACED, recommended the sites for assistance by Odyssey Foundation.

ACED is overseeing the implementation of BLT program in terms of selection of schools and student beneficiaries, school orientation, deworming and physical check-up of pupils, daily lunch feeding, conduct of parent seminars, weighing and height taking of pupils, and program monitoring and evaluation.

The feeding program began on Sept. 3 last year and is expected to be completed on March 31. The parties agreed to administer the program efficiently and conduct monitoring and evaluation to ensure that they are implemented for the full benefit of the school children.