Students in “Pablo”-hit areas in Davao region will receive supplementary feeding of regular meals from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) when classes resume this January.

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman emphasizes that this program aims to encourage parents to send their children back to school by helping provide the food needs of their children. The special supplementary feeding program will cater not only to day care and school children but also to high schoolers.

Under the regular supplementary feeding program of the agency, school children are provided with hot meals if they are enrolled in day care and supervised neighborhood play school.

 “Dugangan na lang nato ang supplementary feeding (We will just augment the supplementary feeding),” she said during a dialogue with school officials to help them lure back the school children whose families were affected by the typhoon.

The local governments of Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, for their part, pledged to  work with DSWD in managing the feeding program for high school students.

Meanwhile, Secretary Soliman added that she discussed other education/school-related issues with Department Education Secretary Armin Luistro and they have agreed that classes in affected areas must be resumed immediately.

She explained that  children must be assembled and that they also need to undergo stress debriefing. ### (DSWD-Social Marketing Service) December 28, 2012.