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By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk Editor
She’s young, talented and extremely popular.
KC Concepcion has everything tucked under her pretty chin, yet she
has also decided to become the country’s spokesman on a very
unglamorous topic—hunger.
Her special mission is to highlight the need to
provide food and other humanitarian relief to the hungry, war-weary
thousands in Mindanao.
Concepcion signed up Thursday as National
Ambassador Against Hunger, becoming a special emissary of the
national office of the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
She signed up after several days of working with
kids and their farmer parents in war-torn Pikit, North Cotabato,
where she immersed herself in the life of Mindanao’s poor and
war-ravaged people.
“I decided to see things personally for myself
before I sign up for anything,” she said.
There’s no luxury where she went. Concepcion
ate what people ate, slept wherever they found themselves in, and
patiently served kids platefuls of food donated by foreign
governments and corporate sponsors.
She said she felt the pangs of war in Mindanao
at the first instance. “Our vehicle was going a million miles a
minute,” she said.
“It was so uplifting to see first-hand how
something as basic as food can make such a difference in the lives
of children,” she added.
Hunger is more than an empty stomach, Concepcion
said, adding that it’s an obstacle that stops children from
achieving their full potential.
The young woman who went to top schools and
recently returned from a stint in France saw for herself how
intermittent war has dislocated even the basic schooling of
Mindanao’s kids.
“Classes were held under the trees” before
the program was introduced, she said. Now, enrolment has gone up at
least 40 percent in one area.
The World Food Programme, which Concepcion is
now endorsing, calls for the regular rationing of food supplies to
hundreds of communities in some 200 towns in six provinces in
Mindanao: Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao, Sultan
Kudarat, Sharif Kabunsuan and Zamboanga del Sur. These provinces are
either part of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, or adjacent
to the ARMM areas.
World Food Programme is using food assistance
and hot meals to boost school enrolment and attendance in Mindanao.
In the next six months, Concepcion plans to travel within and
outside the Philippines to raise awareness about the program’s
operations.
The program is multipronged, using food support
as an incentive to promote school attendance and reduce dropouts in
conflict-affected areas.
Since it was reorganized in 2006, the World Food
Programme has increased enrolment by 40 percent and cut dropouts in
assisted schools by providing monthly food support to more than
180,000 children in 800 schools. The program is implemented in
partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development
and local governments.
In addition to school feeding, the World Food
Programme supports nearly one million people in Mindanao, including
internally displaced, pregnant and nursing mothers and others
affected by the conflict.
Concepcion, daughter of megastar Sharon Cuneta
with actor Gabby Concepcion, joins an illustrious line of World Food
Programme celebrity endorsers including Indonesian TV and film actor
Luna Maya and American actress Drew Barrymore.
“We are thrilled to have KC on board to help
get the word out that, together, we can make real progress in
helping to end hunger in our lifetime through small steps, such as
this one, that make sure no child goes to school hungry,” said
Valerie Guarnieri, program country director and representative in
the Philippines.
“Funding has been our main obstacle in
expanding our successes throughout the conflict-affected areas,”
Guarnieri added. “We hope that, with KC’s help, we will be able
to increase support to the program, including from the private
sector.”
World Food Prgramme is funded entirely by
contributions. Major donors to its emergency assistance program for
people affected by the conflict in Mindanao include: multilateral
funds ($15.2 million); Japan ($2.4 million), Spain ($1.47 million),
Australia ($1.4 million) and Germany ($985,000).
Although long operational in the country, World
Food Prgramme left in 1996 after the country was declared a
middle-income country. It returned in 2006 to contribute to a
peaceful resolution of the conflict in Mindanao, by addressing the
food security needs of vulnerable people in conflict- affected
areas.
World Food Prgramme is the world’s largest
humanitarian agency. This 2008, it plans to provide for the food and
humanitarian needs of more than 80 million people—mostly women and
children—in around 80 of the world’s poorest countries.
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