Baybay City, Leyte – November is National Rice Awareness Month. For 2022-2028, the theme is “Be RicePonsible”. The campaign aims to remind every Filipino to do their role in helping achieve food security, improve the income of farmers, and promote better health among rice consumers.
This year’s campaign highlights the ABKD: adlai, saba, mais at iba pa ay ihalo sa kanin; brown rice ay kainin; kanin ay huwag sayangin; and dapat bigas ng Pilipinas ay bilhin. It also features the Be RicePonsible pledge.
At ATI RTC 8, the staff convened in the morning of Nov. 16, 2022 to discuss how to be RicePonsible everyday even if it is not NRAM. Center Director suggested that commodity point persons should consider including colored rice in the menu for the training. Admin staff assigned to handle catering services was asked to see to it that colored rice is included, if not for all meals during the training duration, even for just a meal or two would suffice.
In the afternoon, students visited the Center for an NRAM orientation and games. With Planting Rice, students had to race “planting” and “harvesting” rice to win a prize. In the Roleta ng KaPALAYran, students tested fate to see what task or question they had to answer. If they were lucky enough to land on the Jackpot, they automatically won a prize. Their counting skills was also put to test as the student with he most number of rice grains counted for in 1 minute was declared winner.
Sean Jade Nicole Lejas, an ATI Scholar, shared, “This activity is very important to intensify the campaign for the responsible consumption of local rice and make ABKD a daily practice. As a student, we also play a significant role in raising awareness to our co-students, our friends and family. Thank you so much ATI-RTC 8 for this fun humayzing activity!”
Joshua Garsola, VSU student, said, “As an education student, I was hyped to attend this activity knowing that I will surely learn something new. We were informed beforehand that there would be Humayzing games and trivias, so we studied the given pamphlets about rice. It was more than luck, that I and my friends would be bringing bags of rice after this activity. Thank you ATI-RTC 8, we are satisfied with the activity, we enjoyed this a lot!”
Winners won bags of colored rice sourced from a local farmer in Ormoc City.
