The ASEA Advancing Life Foundation has joined with the Rise and Rebuild Foundation to help provide nutritious daily meals to families in the Philippines. Donated funds will support local efforts to provide fresh fruits and vegetables with training on how to cultivate a garden and prepare nutritious meals.
Advancing Life is supporting Rise and Rebuild in a three-pronged program that provides immediate relief in a framework for ensuring sustainable life improvements. Using this system, they feed more than 10,000 people every day and hope to be able to feed 100,000 eventually.
Proximate Gardens: The majority of produce used in their programs is grown locally in gardens on the islands of Cebu, Leyte, and Luzon. Nutrition programs are set up within a 2-hour drive of these gardens.
Community Nutrition: This program works with the chief of a village to determine the number of malnourished children in a community. Every morning, mothers with children under the age of five are welcomed to a nutritious breakfast and a lesson on gardening and vegetable prep. Measurements for each child are taken at each breakfast to follow progress, and 90% of children in the program move from severely malnourished to a healthy weight in 60–90 days.
School Kitchens: Working with schools and local governments, this program places a kitchen on school grounds to provide nutritious meals. Mothers are invited to come learn techniques for preparing fresh meals featuring vegetables and meat from the nearby gardens and farms. Children get a great lunch on every school day and receive vegetables to take home to their families every other day. Garden plots at the school are provided to families with planting materials, and, once the initial installation is complete, the government covers maintenance costs.