The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said that some 665,526 children out of the 1.5 million children have improved their nutritional status through weight gain after the 120 days feeding period under the Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP), implemented by the Department, in coordination with local government units (LGUs), based on a partial report submitted by the DSWD-Field Offices.

SFP is the provision of food in addition to the regular meals to currently enrolled day care children as part of the DSWD’s contribution to the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Program of the government.

Food supplementation comes in the form of hot meals served during break time in the morning and in the afternoon sessions to children in Day Care Centers (DCCs) and in Supervised Neighborhood Play (SNP).

The feeding program is being managed by the parents based on a prepared meal cycle. Children-beneficiaries will be weighed at the start of the feeding, three months thereafter, and after the completion of 120 feeding days to determine improvement and sustenance in their nutritional status.

As of April 2015, a total of 1,671,306 day care children in 45,813 day care centers have been provided with supplementary feeding. A total of P2.6 billion has been released to 1,160 LGUs.

For 2015-2016, the program is targeting to serve 2,053,383 day care children.

DSWD also partnered with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in the implementation of the Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (PAHP), where the feeding needs will be supplied by either the DSWD Sustainable Livelihood Program participants or the Agrarian Reform Beneficiary Organizations (ARBOs) of DAR. ###