Malawi Govt to deploy nutritionists to villages

Secretary to the Malawi Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, Edith Nkawa has assured that Government will revive home craft lessons and deploy nutritionists to the rural areas.

Speaking during a recent Child Health Now (CHN) Global Week of Action climax event in Likasi ADP, central Malawi, Nkawa said that she noted with sadness that malnutrition continues to be a hindrance to child wellbeing, hence the need to bring proven efforts to reverse the trend.

“Home craft workers work directly with people on the ground, and we believe they will substantiate the efforts currently waged by NGOs working on nutrition issues,” she said.

While assuring the Government of their continued support, World Vision Malawi’s Lamech Chimphero, speaking on behalf of Mchinji-based Civil Society Organisations, said that the fight against malnutrition needs concerted efforts from all parties with the desire to improve child wellbeing.

In his remarks, Chimphero said that since World Vision begun working in Mchinji, they noted that despite producing a lot of food, children in Mchinji continue being malnourished, hence the need to strengthen proven methods to curb the vice.

“We recommend the department of health’s resolution to bring nutritionists to rural areas. You may also be informed that as World Vision, we have been doing this through community Growth Volunteers and even encourage of mothers in our operational areas to prepare six food groups for their children and the progress has been good,” he said.

This year’s CHN campaign, celebrated under the theme, ‘Uncounted and Unreached; the unseen children who could be saved by better data ran from May one to eights and saw over 50 countries come together and speak for child health.

Concern World Wide, Save the Children, Self Help, and Plan Malawi were some of the CSOs that participated during the open day.