Mental health burdens increase in poor and marginalized people during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (Ransing et al., 2021). This is particularly applicable to those in developing countries such as the Philippines. A concrete development about “collective problem-solving” (Tandon, 2021) that we can continually learn during the pandemic is the proliferation of solidarity-driven activities that decrease the mental health burdens of getting by. One of which is the emergence of community pantries in Asia – started in the Philippines and adopted first by East Timor (Abad, 2021). The nature of the response embodies the spirit of ‘bayanihan’ (Salvador et al., 1997) or ‘pintakasi’ (Bautista et al., 2017), which roughly means solidarity and community action respectively. In a community pantry, rich and poor alike can give and receive food under the sign: ‘give what you can; take what you need.’ The emergence of this response at the grassroots level carries the reactive intention of providing what is lacking in the government’s assistance (Cabato, 2021), and by extension, to the bankruptcy of international organizations to systematically manage global support across nations.
However, the communal gathering of food givers and receivers must not neglect the fact that the nature of the community pantries is to be taken, in essence, as “emergency food” (Lucombe, 2021), which may not be sustainable in the long run. Although the concept of ‘community pantry’ is not new and social media has a role in emphasizing the need for this to be applied to all areas, what can make this sustainable is the further institutionalization that is now being adopted, for example, in schools, the military, church, and local government units.
Modified community pantries are offshoots of this where the focus is not just on food but ‘zero waste’ (bringing personal containers for condiments), sexual health (free contraceptives), and mental health (Villanueva, 2021). The latter is focused on children and their mental health by providing toys and comic books aside from food. The section with toys in one pantry explicitly comes with the label ‘Free Toys, Protect your Mental Health’ for children.
Children embody the entirety of public health, which thereby includes their mental health (Kahambing, 2020). The modified community pantries are interventions that enable public health practice to reach children. Thinking about the present of getting by is a positive attitude in mental health (Bhandari, 2020). This can provide an additional idea to rethinking positivity during the pandemic, especially in the discussion of health system strategies (Gierlinger and Barden, 2020). There is much to think about the pandemic for children, especially when we intersect child mental health ethics with intergenerational ethics. The concept of intergenerational mobility, for example, is a major problem to avoid the low-income poverty trap that awaits the future of children. The crucial empirically-derived backdrop in intergenerational responsibility is that “family environment and the socio-psychological situation the children experience when growing up influences their mental and health development” (Eberharter, 2019). That being said, community pantries – even when sustainable – cannot be taken as a panacea, so that it is still imperative not only to attempt but enact the aim of global support and global solidarity.
It is sufficient to emphasize here that there is positivity exhibited by the modification of community pantries for children’s mental health. Such positivity helps us in pointing out that the present state of affairs already gives traction not only in eliminating uncertainty (Bakioğlu et al., 2020) but also in highlighting that we can modify our existing mental health interventions to be focused on children and that the modifications need the collective efforts of the community and society. Living in a post-COVID world, if at all, requires strong social cohesion (Spoonley et al., 2020), and modified community pantries show promising mental health interventions that rightly address the future of children.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Funding disclosure
None.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the hosts and presenters of The Economist Intelligence Unit 2020 Global Food Security Index (GFSI) launching and his colleagues at the American University of Sovereign Nations, particularly the Bioethics, Sustainability, and Global Public Health strand. He also wishes to thank the editor and the journal staff for considering this work.
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