Better nutrition for Women and Infants in PNG
Malnutrition can be overcome by building understanding of the link between nutrition and healthy child development, through the adoption of a varied daily diet of local, nutritious foods.
In impoverished rural areas of Papua New Guinea, 54% of children are stunted (short for their age) and 14% are wasted (low in weight), frequently leading to permanent, undiagnosed, physical and mental impairment. An inadequate diet, low in energy, protein, fats and oil is largely to blame.
Together, the Rotary Clubs of Port Moresby in PNG and Nambour in Queensland, received Global Grant funding from The Rotary Foundation to address the issue by creating a project to break the malnutrition cycle. After completing a community assessment that confirmed the critical need for education regarding improved nutrition, they delivered a program that encouraged healthier, stronger and smarter babies with unrestricted cognitive development.
A two-week Train-the-Trainer Workshop for Healthier, Stronger, and Smarter Babies was provided to 55 volunteers from 19 villages. Subsequently, 15 teams of instructors delivered awareness sessions to villagers on improved nutrition, birth control, immunisation, disease treatment, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at 41 workshops. Follow-up revision workshops were also held at another 13 villages.
Information resources such as booklets and diet posters were provided to reinforce messages. Demonstration gardens of nutritious foods were established. Each family was given seed of corn, beans, peanut and coconut to encourage production of nutritious food. Talks on nutrition were also given to school children. Project lessons were broadcast on Radio Biami, in both English and the Bedamuni (Biami) language.
At baby food workshops, women prepared simple mashed foods for their babies like fresh dessert banana and papaya, boiled pumpkin and other staple foods enriched with coconut milk or marita pandanus, as well as more complex foods like corn and bean porridge and peanut butter.
About 2,000 families learned about the importance of good nutrition from volunteer instructors. Demonstration gardens showed how the addition of organic matter to the soil maintains soil fertility and promotes productivity of nutritious crops in intensive home gardens. Women had fun preparing new, nutritious baby foods — and the babies relished these foods. Nutrition lessons were reinforced through revision workshops, talks to school children and broadcasts over Radio Biami, as well as widespread distribution of booklets and diet charts for each village. The challenge is to transform awareness into sustainable adoption of nutritious diets for mothers and infants.
Support Rotary to unleash human potential through better nutrition for mothers and children.
