The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Riza Lozada
For a long time now, the Unilab Foundation, a non-governmental organization that acts independently from United Laboratories, has made the implementation innovative health-intervention projects in poor communities its main advocacy.
One of its projects in Cavite, for instance, saw the installation of self-sustaining portable spirulina-production tanks to combat protein deficiency and intestinal parasitism in children.
In Cagayan de Oro City, the foundation introduced an innovative mobile-toilet facility to address the cases of roundworm infection there.
It also promoted the use of medicinal herbs to fight ascariasis and maintain children’s health.
The foundation also funded the use of mussell-shell exhaust filters for vehicles in Los Baños town, Laguna province, to lessen pollution, which was identified as the culprit behind the high cases of respiratory illnesses there.
It introduced a slow sand water-filtering system in Naga City, Cebu province, to help combat diarrhea, and the communities there also received training and hygiene kits.
Unilab Foundation said it has been at the forefront of supporting these innovative projects through its Ideas Positive program.
The foundation held on Aug. 13 the Ideas Positive National Youth Forum on Public Health (IPNYFPH) 2016 at Unilab’s Bayanihan Center in Mandaluyong City.
The event was the first and largest gathering of youth leaders, who discussed the pressing public health issues affecting them.
Unilab Foundation Executive Director Rhodora Palomar-Fresnedi said the program has received 453 innovative ideas from the youth, engaged 3,406 young Filipinos, reached and transformed 52 communities, and enjoined the participation of 315 universities, colleges and organizations.
In an interview with The Market Monitor, Fresnedi said the mission of the foundation is embodied by its first success story, “Play it Forward.”
She also said the foundation is now on its sixth year in supporting Ideas Positive.
“What we do is to share the spirit of Unilab and bayanihan [community spirit] in developing technology that is transferable, that can be brought to communities, and can be open for use to other organizations,” Fresnedi said.
Play It Forward is one of the Unilab Foundation’s most successful intervention projects that addressed post-traumatic disorder in children traumatized by Typhoon Sendong when it struck the country in 2011.
The project started as a play therapy to help traumatize children.
Fresnedi said that, based on the foundation’s study on the communities’ needs during traumatic experiences, such as a devastation caused by a typhoon, they found that playing helped children and emerged as important as food and water.
With this finding, the Unilab Foundation began developing a module for the Play It Forward project and rolled out this innovative intervention in various communities and hospitals.
Fresnedi said that in Cagayan de Oro City, the government donated 1,000 square meters of land for the project. The project also received support from acclaimed architect Francisco Mañosa and his family.
The Ateneo de Davao University also supported the project by designing the baseline intervention, with inputs from the Unilab Foundation
Fresnedi said it took a long time to develop the module, particularly with the need to address an on-site play facility and to deliver this through fast intervention.
She explained that this was due to the series of typhoons that hit the country in recent years, particularly Glenda and Yolanda.
“We end up developing ‘Play It Forward’ on mobile…. Now it has rolled out in Quezon [province] and Tacloban, [Leyte province,]” she said.
These are also tested in hospitals: the Lung Center of the Philippines, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, the Philippine Heart Center, the Philippine General Hospital, Far Eastern University Hospital, and the Fe del Mundo Medical Center.