Highlighting Child Nutrition

Today’s lunch menu is rice, fried eggs, pork and pumpkin soup for the children at a local kindergarten in northern Vietnam. Not all the food had to be bought at the market, however, as the children’s parents provided home grown rice and fresh pumpkins.

“The parents voluntarily bring the food to our kindergarten, which they didn’t do before,” said Mrs Pham Thi Kim Anh, the principal of Hoang Hanh Kindergarten in Tien Lu district, Hung Yen province.

“They used to think that rice with either meat or some vegetables was enough, but now they know that a more varied diet is important for their children’s health,” Mrs Kim Anh added.

At a nearby house, more than 20 women, ranging from twenty-somethings to those in their sixties, listen to a woman explaining how to cook a nutritious porridge for small children.

“I only used to use the liquid from vegetable soup to make porridge, but now I’ve learned that I need to use all of it,” said 25-year-old Doan Thi Hanh, who is a mother of two daughters.

Nutrition has been a topic of much discussion for many of the villagers in Tien Lu thanks to World Vision’s programme of activities focused on nutrition, in which both Mrs Kim Anh and Mrs Hanh have become involved.

The theme for 2013’s campaign was how to prepare children’s meals with rich nutritional content using locally available ingredients. Parents and other caregivers with preschool children, as well as expectant mothers, health workers and teachers, joined the events in Tien Lu, at which they had the chance to question local leaders about their support for child nutrition.

As a result of the campaign and the other efforts of World Vision and local authorities, Tien Lu has witnessed a sharp decrease in childhood malnutrition. According to a World Vision survey, a quarter of children under five were reported to be malnourished in 2013 in the district, down from almost a third in 2011.

However, more work is required, especially in other regions of Vietnam where the malnutrition rate remains high. For example, over a third of children living in Dien Bien province are classified as malnourished when measured in terms of stunted growth and more than one in five are underweight for their age groups, according to the local Department of Health.

To alleviate this situation, World Vision has expanded its Child Health Now project to Dien Bien, Yen Bai, Hoa Binh and Quang Tri provinces and these programmes will address child malnutrition from now until 2015.

The organisation has recently invited representatives from the Department of Maternal and Child Care, the National Institution of Nutrition, the National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology, and government leaders from the four provinces to a project design workshop.

“The Child Health Now project should not be separate from Vietnam’s national strategy for nutrition, which began in 2011 and will continue until 2020,” Mr Nguyen Duc Vinh, Vice Head of the Department of Maternal and Child Care, which operates under the Ministry of Health, said at the event.

“World Vision should work closely with the government to implement its project as well as to achieve the national targets on nutrition,” he continued.

The director of the National Institution of Nutrition, Prof Dr Le Thi Hop, suggested World Vision should provide technical support to not only the four provinces, but also others nationwide.

“I strongly believe that World Vision should train the staff of all relevant agencies on forming nutrition plans, running local awareness courses, and providing nutrition materials,” said the director.

Child Health Now project is part of the Child Health Now Campaign raised by World Vision International across 100 countries. In Vietnam, the project aims to improve nutrition status of children under five through advocating for nutrition policies and giving support to the four target provinces in implementing the Government’s National Nutrition Strategy. The project is implemented at the national, provincial and district levels and integrated into national nutrition programs and World Vision’s nutrition interventions at ADPs. It is estimated that about 267,000 children under five will be benefited from this project.