Salima in malnutrition fight
Anti-malnutrition project targeting 22 000 children and 13 900 pregnant and lactating women has been launched in Salima.
The initiative, which is being implemented under Food and Nutrition Security Programme (FNSP) of GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit), aims to improve the nutrition situation of pregnant women, lactating mothers and children in the lakeshore district.
Speaking during the launch of the campaign in Kanyenda Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Maganga, GIZ country director Katja Altincicek said malnutrition is a big problem in Malawi where about 42 percent of children are stunted.
She said the problem requires various stakeholders to work together in addressing it for sustainable impact.
Said Altincicek: “We are aiming to have a multi-sectoral approach whereby different stakeholders work together-for example, Ministry of Health to implement under-five children programmes and Ministry of Agriculture implementing food diversity programmes-to ensure that our efforts are collaborative.”
The 7. 5 million euro (about K6.1 billion) project, which runs until 2019, is being implemented by Care Malawi.
In his remarks, Care Malawi country director Michael Rewald said the project will empower the community to play a leading role.
He said: “We will engage nutrition education at community level prioritising on households to practice nutrition-sensitive agriculture through production of high nutrient dense crops such as legumes and orange fresh sweet potatoes.”
In his remarks, T/A Maganga asked all stakeholders to work with passion to fight malnutrition for the project to succeed.
