Do feeding programs work? According to the parents and teachers of public school students under the Mondelez Philippines’ Joy Schools program, the impact goes beyond seeing an undernourished child clean his plate at every meal.
“What many people may not realize is that not having enough food available on a regular basis is just one problem. There are children, even the undernourished ones, who are extremely picky eaters,” says Jonalyn Vargas, a teacher at Nangka public elementary school in Marikina City. “There are students who will lick their plate clean of every grain of rice but leave every piece of vegetable behind, no matter how tiny. And what is worse, some have parents who instead of encouraging their children to eat vegetables will just skip buying them altogether in the mistaken belief of ‘don’t buy what they don’t eat’ food budgeting.”
Some employees from Mondelez Philippines, manufacturer of Eden cheese and mayonnaise as well as marketer of snack items like Oreo cookies and Tang powdered beverage, couldn’t help but blink twice the first time they volunteered to cook and serve the meals to the feeding program beneficiaries. “I saw kids who look like 4-year-olds who can barely peer over the table to reach for their food. To learn that they were actually 7- or 8-year-old Grade 1 pupils made me realize how malnutrition can impact children’s growth and wellbeing.” said Emy Molina from Mondelez’s Sales department.
Joy Schools, Mondelez Philippines’ flagship corporate social responsibility program, seeks to create joyful centers of learning, empower families to live healthy lifestyles in the short term and in the long run to help improve educational standing to avoid future hunger. Its main program is a 9-month daily feeding of severely undernourished elementary students.
Nanay Rhea’s youngest of seven children is a 7-year-old Joy Schools beneficiary in Marikina City. She saw her daughter transform from a thin fussy eater to a gregarious child who has made it a happy game with her classmates on who can be the first to finish her meals, vegetables included.
Parent-volunteer Cristita Belen from La Huerta elementary school in Paranaque City, said “Many were the times I lost my patience just getting my children to eat right. I witnessed how fussy eaters, having observed their classmates eat everything on their plates, become motivated to be like their peers.”
Nanay Rhea, however, believes the benefits are not limited to her child. “What I appreciate most about Joy Schools is that I received training I was not able to get elsewhere. I consider myself a good cook, having had some experience operating a small eatery business in the past. But I didn’t know the importance of portion control, particularly when feeding children. Or how to make food more palatable to them, such as making viands with more soup or sauce because I noticed kids are likely to eat more when the food is not so dry.
“Most importantly, the teachers taught me the value of budgeting, like the right way to stretch a fixed food budget, be it for one batch of 50 children for the feeding program or for a family of 9 like mine,” she added.
Joy Schools’ parents also share the teachers’ responsibility of proper financial management. Because a condition of the program mandates that all expenses for the feeding program are liquidated accurately, parent-volunteers learned firsthand how to prepare meals that are nutritionally balanced yet inexpensive enough to feed all 100 beneficiaries per adopted school. “I learned how to make every ingredient count and know where every peso goes,” said Rhea.
Teachers also taught all the parent-volunteers the importance of serving children small portions for their first servings, but with strong encouragement to ask for as many helpings as they can finish. This method not only minimizes food wastage, but also better educates the appetites of the “takaw-mata” (lit. greedy eyes, a tendency to get more food than one can eat). “These are lessons in parenting I would not have known had it not been for the Joy Schools program,” said Rhea.
Shanahan Chua, Corporate & Government Affairs Head of Mondelez Philippines, said, “We believe that for us to grow our impact, we have to help our host communities thrive. Joy Schools is a community program that we are running not just in the Philippines but also across Southeast Asia including the Thailand and Malaysia. Although each country has different nutritional requirements, the principles of the program remain the same: a focus on our global well-being goals of nutrition education, access to fresh food and promotion of active play.”