Currently, mental health issues are of greatest importance to society as it is considered to be a growing invisible pandemic. It is strongly suggested to address concerns in the field of neurology and psychiatry, especially at the community level. One of the most popular interventions that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends is to bring health promotion to the periphery. With this in mind, a public health campaign in one of the University of Santo Tomas Simbahayan partner communities, Kasiglahan Village Rodriguez, Rizal was born. This project aims to bring health awareness to the community, especially at the grassroots levels involving the municipal rural health unit, barangay health care workers and allied specialist stakeholders. They were taught symptom recognition, proper referral to specialists and prevention measures that the community may benefit from, which is much needed at this day and age. Further, this program can serve as a precursor to more public health initiatives regarding mental health in the community to spread awareness and aid in the prevention of mental health illnesses.

Mental Health

Objective: The project aims to develop a community kitchen manual for public health emergencies.

Participants: The officers and members of the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Kababaihan ng BASECO served as community respondents for this project. These eight women were in charge of the community kitchen operations, particularly the feeding program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implementation: The whole project comes in three phases. The design stage was executed in phase one of this project. The phase one also focused on the development of manual content based on available literatures and considered the interviews conducted with respondents.

Discussion: The manual contains guidelines on food safety and meal preparations. Based on the interview, the proponents identified specific contents that must be included in the guidelines, as compared with the need to improve current operations of the group's community kitchen. Looking at the activities of the community, the proponents indicated the food flow guidelines to ensure a safe, nourishing and accessible community kitchen (S.N.A.C.K).

Conclusion: The designed community kitchen manual may be of use to lay groups putting up community kitchens, since there is no existing manual in the Philippines. However, phases two and three must be conducted to validate its usefulness and accuracy in the field.

Food Security ; Food Safety