During our July 27 #Zero Hunger/Malnutrition Cebu event, our multi-sectoral partners expressed their pledge to sustain our feeding campaign, with AgriCoop particularly eager to serve 1,000 pospas for each subsequent barangay feeding outreach.
July 29, two days later, when RCE Cebu’s Atty. Golly Estenzo Ramos and I, with Ms. Niña Estenzo, met with Cebu Governor Pam, we shared this information with her and suggested mobile kitchen units as well along with her mobile health units.
Gov Pam readily, happily, positively considered this suggestion which she shared had always been close to her heart –envisioning Cebu where no Cebuano goes hungry– a dream she has long championed through their Simply Share Foundation.
By October 14, true to her word and her dream, Gov Pam rolled out Cebu’s first mobile kitchen to show, in her words that ‘by now you know how food security is so close to my heart. We meant being ready –to feed, to serve, and to care. This is the realization of a dream and a promise –to bring fresh meals, comfort, and hope to every Cebuano.’
The mobile kitchen will serve warm, nutritious meals to be served swiftly during disasters. It is also expected to support daily feeding of children in day-care centers across the province to ‘promote health, learning, and dignity through every meal.’
Five fully-equipped mobile kitchen units are expected to serve thousands of hot/nutritious meals daily during emergencies and for supporting daily feeding programs, through LGUs and local Social Welfare Development officers.
Assistant provincial administrator Aldwin Empaces shared that ‘the units will be managed by the PSWDO and operated under emergency procurement protocols.’
‘One mobile kitchen will be stationed at the Bogo Provincial Hospital to replace its damaged kitchen facilities caused by the quake. The remaining units will be deployed to tent cities in Bogo, San Remigio, and Medellin, then later, the mobile kitchens will be rotated among other LGUs depending on need and the concentration of displaced families.’
Gov Pam added, ‘Some people say, ‘don’t give them fish, teach them to fish.’ I agree. But what about the times when our people can’t fish? When the sea is rough, when homes are gone, and when they’ve lost everything? That’s when the government must step in –not to create dependency, but to give people the strength to stand again.’
During our July 29 brief meeting with Gov Pam, RCE Cebu also suggested that these mobile health-kitchen rollouts should also be accompanied by trainings for household/community gardens, other waste management options for livelihood and climate action to encourage constituents to raise their own household food for their own needs or for trading, to cook their own grown food with charcoal produced from paper waste, and to practice ecobricking, to avoid polluting their rivers and communities.
We look forward to this training suggestion to accompany the mobile health-kitchen rollouts soon.
The mobile kitchen project can also be further developed to strengthen the link of the local communities with the province. The food to be served by the mobile kitchen can be provided and sold by local producers in the areas where there are scheduled mobile kitchen rollouts.
The mobile kitchen can help support local producers by buying local produce to be used for the warm, nutritious meals for the beneficiaries. Hence, aside from providing food for the hungry in calamity areas and in day-care centers, the mobile kitchen can support the food production and food security campaign of the province, benefitting a wider network of farmers, food producers, suppliers and distributors!
If Gov Pam decides to implement the training component together with her mobile kitchen mobile programs, the training component can help promote more Sustainable Development Goals such as alleviating poverty, providing livelihood, managing agriculture/waste effectively/sustainably, and more!