240 women from 16 villages in Kakoma Section of the Mbawa Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Mzimba district on Thursday graduated with certificates in Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) after attending 10 sessions on nutrition and cooking demonstrations.
The graduation ceremony was meant to award and encourage all community actors who participated in the programme. It also acted as platform to sensitise other community members on good nutrition, good agriculture practices, gender based issues as well as HIV and AIDS.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) with funding from the Flemish International Development Agency (FICA) is supporting a project called Improving Food Security and Nutrition Policies and Programme Outreach in Kasungu and Mzimba Districts, of which IYCF is one of the components.
The project offers nutrition policy and programme advisory services to the Government of Malawi and reinforces government activities in agriculture and nutrition in the said two districts.The project, which runs from May 2010 to April 2015, is targeting more than 30, 000 vulnerable households in the two districts.
One of the certificate recipients, Rhoda Chisi, applauded the FICA - FAO supported project saying it has brought about change in the area as households are now able to do their daily chores without any worries.
"Since the programme started in this area, we have seen a decrease in number of infants and children falling sick because we are able to make healthy and nutritious foods using the locally available food products," she said.
She observed the area was previously lagging behind in development as communities were busy caring for sick children putting the area at risk of being underdeveloped. However, Chisi said the situation is different now as there are lesser cases of child illnesses due to malnutrition.
Kakoma Section Chairperson, Ida Chunga, observed since the introduction of the programme in the area in 2012, there has been improved hygiene which has lead to the reduction of diseases associated with poor hygiene.
"Before this project came to here, our area was unhygienic as most communities did not have pit latrines and as such we were using the bush to defecate. But with the coming in of this project, communities have stopped open defecation as each household has dug a pit latrine and is using it," she said.
On the nutrition part, Chunga said it has improved as both children and HIV positive people are no longer sickly as was the case before.
FICA - FAO District Manager for Mzimba, Benjamin Mtika, appealed to those trained to not keep the knowledge they have gained to themselves but rather pass it to others for the sake of sustainability.He said the programme is vital in addressing malnutrition in the district and the country as a whole because people use locally available foods.
"The programme will assist government in saving money spent on buying food supplements to malnourished children as communities will be able to make nutritious foods hence eliminating malnutrition," he said.
The first round of the programme has been implemented in 200 villages in Kasungu and Mzimba and has reached out to about 3, 500 households in the two districts.
Since its implementation, the IYCF programme has observed that mothers are able to adopt the good infant and child feeding practices when they are tailored to household needs.
The programme whose key message is 'diversified and improved diet of locally available foods in combination with good hygiene and health practices can improve nutritional status of children under two years of age' encourages households to give local and seasonal food with emphasis on vegetables, fruits, pulses and animal source foods such as eggs, goat milk and small fish to the infant and young child.
In Malawi, malnutrition rates among children are very high with 47 per cent of children under five years of age stunted, despite the country's success in reducing acute malnutrition.
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