Growth, Health and Governance programme improves lives of mothers and children in Karamoja
By Flavia Lanyero
Despite having a one week old baby, Anna Naru can already afford to participate in the mother care group activities where she is a lead mother. The mother care group is a group of women in the reproductive age who support and teach one another to care for their newborns and older children, produce food for families as well as ensure a peaceful co-existence among homesteads.
For Nakal, this is her third baby that she is delivering from a health centre, something only recently introduced to this community. The mother of five has had two of her children delivered from home and she recounts the experience as nasty.
“When a mother gives birth at home, before the baby’s umbilical cord falls off, she is not allowed to eat food despite losing a lot of blood. She is not even allowed to bath,” narrates Nakal adding that the women are isolated from the communities during the time of child birth.
Such traditional practices have indeed been fueling the high child and maternal mortality rate in Karamoja region. Coupled with food scarcity, the newborns and infants suffer malnutrition and a high disease burden. According to a June 2014 World Food Programme and UNICEF Food Security and Nutrition Assessment Report, the nutrition status of children under five years and other vulnerable individuals within Karamoja region remained an area of concern because of sustained malnutrition status at more than Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence rate.
The Northern Karamoja Growth Health and Governance is thus a five year USAID funded project with a goal to improve peace and Food Security in Northern Karamoja. The project is implemented in partnership with Mercy Corps with World Vision focusing on strategic objective two that seeks to improve nutrition among children under five by focusing on the first 1000 days window from conception to two years of age.
The $55,000,000 project that commenced in July 2012 is implemented in the Northern Karamoja districts of Abim, Kotido and Kaabong. During this time, mothers have been getting appropriate behavior change messages on various aspects including breast feeding, giving birth at a health centre, nutrition supplements among others. The mothers and children also receive supplementary foods in addition to being supported to start small gardens where they plant fast maturing foods that add nutritious value to the families.
Today, Naru is happy to have given birth at a health centre and is also a proud owner of a vegetable garden which provides her family with alternative food for a balanced garden.
“Delivering from hospital is very good. Even after one week, I am able to work in the garden and cook food for my family, I am also treated for any pain and it goes away quickly,” says Naru.
According to Mr Esatu Elilo, the Deputy Chief of Party operations for GHG, there has been tremendous progress in the right direction in Karamoja as a result of the programme.
“We are now seeing a significant change in the lives of mothers and children. Children are no longer falling sick as often as they used to and communities are now happily engaging in livelihood activities,” said Mr Esatu adding that they are now also seeing a reasonable distribution of labour as previously women did all domestic work including fencing of homesteads, farming and even fetching water.
According to the World Vision Karamoja region 2014 program report outline, 2,633.525 Metric Tons of food was distributed to 67,315 children under two years, pregnant and lactating mothers under the GHG programme, 657 Village Health Teams identified and trained in different roles, 16 boreholes constructed with 5 boreholes still being drilled. 3 latrines of 5 stances each have been constructed in 3 primary schools among other achievements.