The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office is giving P100,000 for the walking program of Foundation University.
Dr. Aparicio Mequi, director of the University’s Institute for Youth Sports and Peace announced the PCSO grant during Wednesday’s meeting of the university administrative council.
Mequi introduced the walking program in 2009 after a study conducted by Physical Education teacher Kathleen Dellona revealed that almost half of entering freshman students exhibited health risks due to obesity, which is a precursor to non-communicable lifestyle diseases such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart ailments.
The program requires all P.E. students to walk a quarter marathon (10.5 kilometers) as a requirement for passing the course.
One year later, the Quarter Marathon Walk for Wellness and the Environment (QMWWE) program was institutionalized as a program of the IYSPeace. It got candidates for various positions in the 2010 elections to walk from Valencia to Dumaguete (about 9 kilometers), to prove their fitness to run for public office.
“Six QMWWEs had been staged so far, each with some 1,000 walkers and FU spends about P15,000 for each staging. Clearly, there is a need for a sponsor to sustain it,” Mequi noted.
Upon learning that health and wellness of Filipinos is one of the major concerns of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Mequi lost no time in submitting a proposal, citing the benefits of walking and of walkable communities.
Apart from the proposal, Mequi also submitted a proposed logo which made use of the agency’s existing logo with the addition of walking footwear. “We thought that this should attract favorable response, and it certainly did!” he said.
With funding support from the PCSO, FU is committed to sustain the Quarter Marathon Walk for Wellness and the Environment for the rest of remaining months of the year and up to early next year.
Program participants will receive certificates as well as special PCSO “Walkers for Life” t-shirts. Those who will complete four quarter marathon walks will become members of the “Walkers for Life” association, a group of young people and adults who adopt and live the vigorous life of the global community of healthy people on a healthy Planet Earth. (Alex Rey Pal)
