BUTUAN CITY – The nutrition advocates in Caraga region composed of government agencies, local government units, and media have geared-up their communication efforts by maximizing the utilization of communication platforms to effectively reach more people and increase awareness on healthy lifestyle and malnutrition prevention.
During their recent meeting, the National Nutrition Council (NNC) under the Department of Health (DOH) Caraga, stressed the importance of effective communication among nutrition advocates, as they intensify the campaign against malnutrition in different communities of the region.
Leah Vina Vargas, nutrition officer III of NNC-DOH Caraga said that the nutrition advocates known as Caraga Movers group should develop effective communication skills that could help them achieve their goals in their advocacy campaign.
“As health communicators, we should be consistent with our advocacy statements and ensure that the locals understand what we wanted to convey to them. We should ‘walk the talk,’ so people could see that we are serious in advocating and implementing our campaign to a healthy lifestyle and prevent malnutrition,” underlined Vargas.
Vargas added that its primary audience includes the parents, caregivers, the elderly, the youth sector, pregnant and lactating women, the indigenous people and the food handlers, while the secondary target audience are the local chief executives, policy makers, teachers, health and nutrition workers and local nutrition committees.
“We should be able to maximize the utilization of the media through SMS (which the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) has been doing), community billboards, symposium, forum, seminar, press conference, local newspapers and issuance of a memorandum, among others,” Vargas highlighted.
Vargas further reiterated that Information Education and Communication (IEC) materials such as Ten Kumainments, infant and young child feeding, salt iodization, campaign on strengthening the functionality of the local nutrition committee, promotion of backyard gardening and organic farming should continuously be disseminated to the general public: (JPG/PIA-Caraga)
