MALNOURISHED CHILDREN OUTREACH
ICM’s Malnourished Children Outreach (MCO) saves lives. In coordination with local government officials, ICM identifies ten severely underweight children in each community and provides them with a nutritious meal each day. At the end of four months, two-thirds of these children will have increased their weight by at least 15%, the threshold recommended by UNICEF. This MCO program has long lasting effects: five months after the completion of the feeding program, most of the children had at least maintained their weight gain.
Meals are prepared by the partnering host church community. The food is provided through ICM’s partnership with Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) and Kids Against Hunger (KAH), two US-based non-profit organizations. FMSC and KAH have together promised 19 forty-foot containers of “nutripacks”, which represents more than 5 million meals. Negros Navigation provides free shipping of the food from Manila to each of ICM’s bases.
In 2011/12, ICM is piloting a modified Transform-VHL course specifically for mothers of MCO children. The new curriculum emphasizes the nutritional needs of children and will be offered in 60 communities.
