94% of Students Excel in High School Reading Program in the Philippines

on April 8, 2024

Rise Against Hunger is working to alleviate hunger in the Philippines — where almost 45% of the population faces food insecurity — with in-country partners and global network member Rise Against Hunger Philippines.

One of the ways we address food insecurity is through school feeding. In Legazpi City, Philippines, Oro Site High School’s feeding program not only supports the students’ nutrition — the school also utilizes the meals to implement educational programs that are improving academic performance. Watch the video below to hear more and keep reading to learn how the meals are making a real impact in these children’s lives!

All of Oro Site High School’s 500+ grade 7 students are served nutritious meals daily. These meals are provided by Rise Against Hunger (after being packaged by volunteers like you!) and distributed to the school by our in-country partner Convoy of Hope.

The school feeding program is truly a community effort. 21 volunteers help cook the meals, and Oro Site High School partners with other local organizations, in addition to Convoy of Hope, to fund ingredients that are added to the meals for further enrichment.

With many of Oro Site’s students facing economic challenges, the feeding program provides critical nutrition for these children — and the school head, Jolan Torres, has seen the impact of the meals.

Jolan Torres, school head

Jolan explains how the feeding program operates: “This is a pioneering activity here in Oro Site High School, that we offer a feeding program for the junior high school students, for grade 7 students.”

Throughout the feeding program, the school weighs the children at baseline and every subsequent quarter to monitor their nutritional status and ensure the effectiveness of the program. In the year and a half since Jolan started in his role at the school, he has seen how the feeding program supports the students. He says, “That’s why we are partnering with various organizations to address the different needs of our students. Especially along [with] literacy, numeracy and health.”

In addition to supporting the children’s nutritional needs, the meals incentivize students to attend and stay in school. With more students routinely attending, the school has launched a reading program alongside the feeding program to support academic performance.

The teachers first identify students who aren’t reading well. The students then participate in classes that aim to improve their reading skills. Each teacher also “adopts” one student in the program to read with them.

Maribeth Adornado, teacher and feeding coordinator

Maribeth is one of the teachers who assists in Oro Site’s reading program and is also a feeding coordinator. “This is very important for those grade 7 students who are slow readers, not only for their reading, but also in their nutritional status,” she says. She has seen the students become more enthusiastic about reading as their skills have improved.

The reading program, supported by the meals, has been very successful. Last year, 34 of the 36 students who participated in the reading program were reading at grade level by the end of the year. That’s a 94% success rate!

Carlo and Patricia, 13-year-old students

Carlo and Patricia are both Oro Site High School students who participate in the feeding program. Patricia says, “I really like the meals that the parents cook us and it’s so delicious and it makes me eat more.” She also shares that the feeding program helps her classmates gain weight and focus on their studies while having a full stomach.

With the nutrition they need, Carlo and Patricia are excelling in their classes as they work toward their big dreams. Patricia wants to be a dentist when she grows up. And Carlo says, “I want to become an army [man].”

For these schoolchildren, it starts with a meal — and it leads to education and bright futures. Maribeth said, “I dream that the students, for the future, they will come up with a better job, they end with a better future, they are happy and they are well-disciplined citizens of this country.”

Supporting children’s bright futures is made possible by Hunger Champions like you! Donate $10 or more today to ensure children around the world have the nutrition they need to support their education and health.

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.