The City of Victorias in Negros Occidental is expanding efforts to address malnutrition among children in 15 of the city’s 26 barangays through a sustained partnership with the Negrense Volunteers for Change (NVC) Foundation, a Bacolod-based non-profit organization.

Mayor Javier Miguel Benitez and NVC chief executive officer and president Milagros Kilayko signed a memorandum of agreement in a ceremony held at the Victorias City Hall on Monday to seal the new partnership.

Some 61 stunted children identified during the assembly of the Mingo Nutrition Program last month are the beneficiaries of the NVC’s Mingo MingGROW Protocol, a 12-month complementary nutrition program for stunted children ages 6 to 36 months old.

“Through the partnership, we aim to achieve zero stunted and severely stunted children in Victorias City,” Benitez said in a statement on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization defines stunting, which is considered undernutrition, as low height-for-age.

Stunted children have impaired growth and development due to poor nutrition, repeated infection, and deficient psychosocial stimulation.

The foundation will ensure the daily provision of 16 to 24 ounces of fresh milk per child, prescribe vitamins and minerals during the first month, facilitate home and group visits, and assist in creating family and community gardens for a sustainable food supply.

It will also tap barangay nutrition scholars to lead the peer groups, consisting of the mothers of beneficiaries, who will monitor and record the developments of identified children.

They also signed a memorandum of understanding for planning and the development of the city’s nutrition master plan, with Victorias serving as one of the laboratories of NVC to implement the newly designed and tested protocols to eradicate malnutrition.

The Mingo MingGROW Protocol program is the second collaboration between the city government and the NVC, following the supplementary feeding program for 307 undernourished children last year. (PNA)