Providing meals to 500 street children in Manila

Childhope’s KalyenDeria:
Mula sa Kusina Patungo sa Nutrisyon ng Mga Bata
(From The Kitchen to The Nutrition of The Children)

Childhope’s programs and projects are holistic to promote the welfare, uphold, and protect children’s rights. With this, children are supported through Childhope’s education, psychosocial interventions, and health and medical services. 

Nutrition is no exception to children’s rights. Thus, Childhope established KalyenDeria in 2021 in response to the pandemic to distribute filling meals to children in street situations aside from the relief assistance they provided during the COVID-19 lockdown.  

KalyenDeria is a mobile kitchen that travels around Manila to distribute meals to Childhope’s beneficiaries. Meal distributions happen 3-4 times weekly from Tuesday to Thursday and sometimes on Saturdays. 400 meals are distributed on the according days, amounting to 1,200-1,600 given meals each week to areas from the northern and southern parts of Manila.

For meal preparation, the personnel of Childhope start preparing and cooking the meals for KalyenDeria before lunch so that the kids will receive their warm meals by lunchtime. However, the time slot has been adjusted recently due to the sweltering heat index and to distribute meals after the children’s school dismissal.

For that reason, the mini trucks are stocked and ready to travel to the designated areas between 3 and 4 in the afternoon instead of the initial lunchtime schedule.

During the KalyenDeria distribution, there are parent and youth leaders who assist in distributing meals. They also act as contact person/s for every area to gather the kids and ensure the distribution will go smoothly.

Thanks to donations, sponsors, and most especially GT Foundation, KalyenDeria has been helping children in street situations since 2021.

Links:

• Less 30-second video of KalyeDeria project for a week.