{"id":199330,"date":"2015-04-16T04:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T18:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=199330"},"modified":"2015-04-16T04:00:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T18:00:37","slug":"nmc-and-tasa-to-receive-who-best-practice-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmc-and-tasa-to-receive-who-best-practice-award\/","title":{"rendered":"NMC and TASA to receive WHO \u2018best practice\u2019 award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeds of health are being planted in the northern villages of the island.<\/p>\n

And for this effort, the Northern Marianas College has been chosen to receive the World Health Organization\u2019s \u201cHealthy Islands Best Practice\u201d award. They are winners for their submission, \u201cTASA Role Models.\u201d<\/p>\n

TASA, a non-profit group, stands for the villages of Tanapag, Achugao, San Roque, and As Matuis. Together, the college and TASA aim to reduce childhood obesity in these villages by rebuilding playgrounds, sidewalks, and loaning balls, cones, and jump ropes to families so they can exercise.
\n

\"Northern<\/a>
Northern Marianas College officials and members of TASA, a non-profit group, have their picture taken after announcing that they will be presented with the World Health Organization\u2019s \u201cbest practices\u201d award for their community health outreach program. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Health tip sheets and signboard were also shared with village families. The college even got I-Mart, a village store, to include a fruit and vegetable section it never had before.<\/p>\n

These efforts were part of funding through NMC\u2019s Cooperative Research Extension and Education Service, specifically their Children\u2019s Healthy Living Program.<\/p>\n

In a news briefing yesterday, TASA\u2019s Eileen Babauta credited the CHL program for making them active. \u201cCHL helped us bring all of what was in our minds to reality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

TASA\u2019s Chailang Palacios said this is \u201call about helping young children\u201d physically, mentally, and spiritually.<\/p>\n

When TASA started back in 1983, she said, there was \u201ctaya\u201d coconut water or water bottles for kids to drink; just a lot of beer and soda.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you have more choices,\u201d she said, noting that in the last 30 years, she has seen improvement in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

NMC-CREES dean Tim Kock, referring to the CHL\u2019s grant funding, said that grants aren\u2019t sustainable but planting seeds in the communities are. That\u2019s what they did with TASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seed has been planted in the community. If it\u2019s going to grow, it is going to grow through the community,\u201d Kock said. \u201cMaking it part of the community is what makes it sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

CREES connected I-Mart with local farmers to \u201cbuild bridges\u201d between stores and farmers that grow produce on a sustainable scale.<\/p>\n

Kock said they want to teach farmers of nutritious crops that can still be profitable in the market.<\/p>\n

NMC and TASA representatives are en route to Fiji to accept the award at the Pacific Health Ministers Meeting. TASA also will receive $10,000 to continue their efforts.<\/p>\n

NMC thanks the Public School System, the Division of Public Health, and I-Mart for their partnerships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeds of health are being planted in the northern villages of the island. And for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":199332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3867,69,3868,2663],"class_list":["post-199330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chl","tag-nmc","tag-tasa","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}