WFP set to resume food-for-work program in Zamboanga City

ZAMBOANGA CITY, May 17 (PNA) -– A total of 6,000 families are set to benefit from the food-for-work program as the World Food Program is set to resume the program as part of its assistance to the families displaced by the September 2013 siege in this city.

City Hall information officer Sheila Covarrubias said that 4,893 of the 6,000 beneficiary-families are from transition sites and evacuation centers while the remaining 1,107 are home-based families.

Home-based families refer to displaced families who have sought temporary shelter with their relatives.

Covarrubias said the food-for-work program is set to resume this month and will end in July which will involve the downloading of 18,000 sacks of rice weighing 50 kilograms each.

Covarrubias said that each IDP will receive a sack of rice for a week’s work. The work period for the first month is from May 19 to 25.

She said that the Department of Social Welfare and Development, City Social Welfare and Development Office, Office of the City Agriculturist and Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs are coordinating with the WFP for the implementation of the program.

Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar has expressed gratitude to the WFP for the resumption of the food-for-work program citing “it will greatly help the IDPs, as they bounce back from the destruction wrought by the siege.”

The first food-for-work program that benefited thousands of IDPs was implemented from November last year until February this year. (PNA)
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