What does a day in the life of a Barangay Nutrition Scholar (BNS) look like?

A BNS provides nutrition services to households with children 5 years and below, malnourished children, pregnant and lactating women, and senior citizens. We may know BNSs as the ones going on house-to-house visits regardless of the weather. They are relentless in accomplishing their task to locate and identify malnourished children through the Operation Timbang Plus program. They are our nutrition information banks in the barangay; may it be masterlists of malnourished children, pregnant and lactating mothers, or existing nutrition interventions; you name it, and they can give it to you. We know them as community mobilizers, linkage-builders, and advocates for nutrition–but their work doesn’t end there.

In the time of COVID-19, a day in the life of a BNS looks different. During these extraordinary times, our BNSs continue to serve at the frontline as part of the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT).

In Metro Manila, being a BNS has become more than an 8-to-5 job, and what they do now has gone beyond their job description. In addition to nutrition services, they are part of the skeletal workforce that ensures our safety amid this health crisis. They are repacking food items and other commodities for distribution. Afterwards, they join the team going around to distribute food packs and vitamin supplements to households especially those with undernourished children, and pregnant and lactating women.

To ensure that children 2 years and below are given optimum nutrition, they continue to encourage mothers to breastfeed and practice proper complementary feeding. Senior citizens still regularly receive their medications at their doorsteps because of our BNSs. There are BNSs who also help the barangay by distributing home quarantine passes. They also ensure that priority families are included in the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) by giving out and validating application forms.

These seem to be one too many tasks for a day in the life of our BNSs, whom we consider as Nutrition Heroes. But our BNSs always manage to accomplish these things still wearing a huge smile at the end of the day. As we fight this crisis, let us always remember our BNSs and how tirelessly they are serving, going as far as risking their own safety to secure ours. (RGRG/NPC MEVF/NNC-NCR)