The Municipality of Bonifacio is all set for the establishment of an Early Warning System for Food and Nutrition Security (EWS-FNS) after undergoing a two-day consultative workshop last October 12-13 facilitated by the National Nutrition Council (NNC). The Municipality of Bonifacio was selected as an expansion area of the project because of the 16.65% prevalence of underweight preschool children based on the 2014 Operation Timbang – the highest in the Province of Misamis Occidental and because of the willingness of Mayor Evelyn C. Dumanjug to be part of the initiative.

Through the early warning system, the Municipality of Bonifacio will be assisted in detecting, at an early stage, an impending food crisis that might trigger or cause food insecurity and undernutrition. Ms. Alona E. Teo, Nutrition Officer II of the Nutrition Surveillance Division of the NNC Central Office, facilitator of the workshop said – “with the EWS-FNS, Bonifacio is now one step closer to a malnutrition free community’.

Members of the local EWS Team identified during the workshop the five (5) barangays (Barangays Digson, Poblacion, Bagumbang, Liloan and Bolinsong) that will serve as sentinel areas for monitoring of household hunger and diet diversity. The team is set to attend a training in November on nutrition and nutrition-related data collection and analysis as well as on the management and maintenance of the EWS-FNS.

Bonifacio joins Ozamiz City as Northern Mindanao expansion areas of the early warning system. srdc & hge