We are a Christian compassion organisation dedicated to restoring hope to Filipino children and their families who live in poverty. This is achieved through programmes of compassion that minister to people's basic needs.
[read more]

Of the 20 million Filipino school children who began the 2006-07 school year, almost 30 percent belong to families living below the poverty line. The children of these poor families, about six million of them, go to school hungry or in a state of malnutrition every day. Some actually go to school without having had any kind of breakfast, others after eating a handful of rice and a piece of dried fish. These poor children skip meals during recess for lack of means or money for food. More than a third of them are likely to be suffering from different ranges of malnutrition.

The latest study conducted by Unicef, the Department of Health and the University of the Philippines College of Public Health has disclosed that about 66 percent of 12- to 71-month-old (one-year-old to almost 6-year-old) children suffer from worm infestation. In 2003 a Department of Education survey found that 51.6 percent to 77.7 percent of schoolchildren suffer from worm infestation.

Unicef found that most children with worms suffer from abdominal pains, lack of appetite, perianal (around the anus) itching, anemia and restlessness. Most of the children in the Unicef survey were pale, and those who had good appetite remained thin, lacked energy and could not sleep well.

Clinical research shows that being underweight and underweight are signs of malnutrition. Studies in 2001 show that 31.8 percent of Filipino school-age children are underweight, 32 percent are stunted and 6.6 percent suffer from wasting disorders.

The Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology said Filipino schoolchildren suffer from protein-energy malnutrition, iron-deficiency anemia and deficiencies in vitamin A and iodine. The institute’s researches also show that clinically severe malnutrition and moderate malnutrition exponentially increase mortality risk in young children and that moderate malnutrition may pose delayed cognitive and psychomotor development.

Over the long term, these children are vulnerable to infection and disease usually with serious complications. Poor nutrition contributes to poor mental development and low academic performance. Other consequences, that don’t show up physically, include frequent absenteeism, repetition of grade level, and a high incidence of school dropouts. Such health and educational fallout presents a serious socio-economic burden to families and society.