Capacity building on education to nutrition

In 2011, Pesinet put a great emphasis on nutrition in its prevention and sensitization activities.

In Mali, chronic malnutrition affects 38% of under-five children and is moslty dur to inadequate fooding practices. It is a aggravating factor for children disaeses as, non-treated, it can have dramatic consequences on long-term child development. This is why Pesinet is focused on reinforcing its capacity to better detect and prevent malnutrition amongs its subscribers.

After carrying out communication activites in early 2011 among families to support and promote culinary workshops organised by the partnering healthcare center, we worked at reinforcing our agents’ training to develop our own prevention actities towards families.

Pesinet agents have received a first training on Essential Family Practices in Nutrition (exclusive breast-feeding up to 6 months, food supplementation after 6 months) during the health training sessions in April animated by the local NGO Jigi. The objective was for them to be able to relay key messages during their home visits among families.

A second training session, orientated towards the sharing of practices, was organized in July. The training session was animated by the Manager of the Prevention Unit of the partnering healthcare center.  It allowed participants to discuss in detail the advantages of exclusive breast-feeding and to train agents on identification of appropriate supplements depending of the age of the child, based on their feedback from experience.

In September, four educative talks were animated by Pesinet agents on nutrition. More than 40 mothers came to share exeprience on the advantages and difficulties of exclusive breast-feeding, to raise questions about food supplements after 6 months, to share learnings on good ways to organise their lives while practicing exclusive breast-feeding. This educational talks concluded with a synthesis of key learnings by the agents to ensure all messages had been properly understood by the participants.

New training sessions and educative talks will be organised in the months to come to develop other aspects of nutrition education.