The first 1000 days of life from mother’s womb to the age of two, is the most critical period for human bearing development. During these days if a mother did not eat healthy and balanced diet, the child may face under nutrition followed by often severe and irreversible cognitive and physical damage.
According to the Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA) study the total economic impact of child under nutrition in Ethiopia is equivalent of 16.5 percent of its GDP. This is dramatically high rate of lack of development of children in Ethiopia even though some progress has been made these last 15 years. “This has major cost burden on the local community and the country as a whole,” says Hiwot Amare a founder of Nutrition for Early Development N4ED, a local non-profit organization that she initiated with a mission to improve children nutrition in order to ensure their full cognitive and physical development.
In parallel to the government’s effort to prevent stunting and malnutrition through various mechanisms local NGO’s role is inevitable in reduction of the prevalence of stunting and improved nutrition. Even though, Hiwot is an IT professional who was a software consultant in France, she has followed a rather typical path for her passion to change lives of many with a firm belief that sustainable poverty reduction can only be achieved if future generations are fully developed and have their full potential available to learn and thrive, and so she moved back to Ethiopia and co-founded a non-profit organization that strives to break the cycle of poverty by investing on early childhood nutrition.
Starting from when she was 15 Hiwot has volunteer in different associations and running different associations where she has implemented various projects involving Europe, Africa Asia and America following her passion to help people in need. Her organization works to give each mother the knowledge, desire, selfconfidence and the financial capacity to provide nutritious and balanced food to her child.
“Under nutrition can occur due to hunger but also due to the shortage of vitamins or minerals that are essential for proper growth and metabolism. It has impacts on immunity undernourishment can greatly compromise a child’s immune system making them more susceptible to infectious diseases. And also growth consequently to low immunity, a gastrointestinal infection places the child at even greater risk for nutrient deficiencies because nutrients are unable to be absorbed properly.
Also cognitive development attention deficit disorder impaired school performance decreased and cold decrease IQ scores, memory deficiency, learning disabilities, reduced social skills, reduced language development, and reduced problem solving abilities. This leads to a reduction in their ability as a result to lead the productive, meaningful, prosperous lives they need to leave the cycle of poverty and contribute to the development of their communities” Her organization particularly works in stunting.
“In nutrition for need we are more concerned about particularly stunting. Stunting is a form of malnutrition that comes from the shortage of vitamins or minerals that are essential for proper growth and metabolism.” “N4ED is licensed by the Ethiopian Charities and Societies Agency (ECSA) since September 2016. Our very first project started in June 2017. It has been almost two years since we started operating in Ethiopia.
With our main “one community at a time” projects, currently operating in peripheral urban low income communities, we have reached one community in the Entoto area and we are starting two new communities in Kolfe Keranio and Akaki Kaliti areas,” she pointed. “For each community, we work intensively with a group of about 20 households during the first 1000 days. Then we select 3 technical or academic training of their choice that could improve their employ-ability.
In parallel, we run satellite projects as a partnership program with health professionals that we train and support to run nutrition and child feeding habit education programs in the institutions of their choice. With this program we hope to reach hundreds of mothers who are at risk of raising malnourished children.” “So far, we have identified two institutions, one in Addis Ababa and another one in the Benshangul Gumuz region. Moreover, we have run smaller interventions.
In Dire Dawa we have reached over 45 primary school students, 20 day care children and about 30 parents in interventions ranging from discovering the native healthy foods of the region, initiation to health diet and hygiene, discussion about child feeding behaviors. Also in peripheral Dire Dawa, we have reached 15 pregnant and lactating mothers to introduce them to affordable and nutritious diets, hygiene, and breastfeeding.” she added.
“Addis Ababa’s stunting prevalence is 15% which is much lower than the national 38 percent. However, the disparity in the socio-economic level of the urban population suggests that the relatively low prevalence cannot be generalized to the overall urban population. At N4ED we focus on urban neglected peripheral population who mostly live in slum areas. The low income in line with the illiteracy level in these areas; make them highly vulnerable for malnutrition.
As a matter of fact the EDHS 2016 shows 42 percent of stunting prevalence occurs when the mother has no education.” As to her, they have reached two classrooms of about 25 students and run 3 parent dialogues in Addis Ababa. Through a few radio programs they have reached the general population to sensitize parents and the society at large on the importance of good nutrition and hygiene. Hiwot’s next project is to associate with governmental institutions.
“We would like to be partner with governmental institutions to set the framework for sustainable enforcement of nutrition. For example, we want to encourage the health extension programs to focus more and more on nutrition than what is already being done. Mainly by creating nutrition leaders among the health professional those directly reach the communities. In the education sector our aim is to reinforce the re- inclusion of nutrition education and school gardening in the curriculum, the accessibility of child care systems and school meals at affordable rates.”
“In parallel with these efforts, we want to build a large social media community to create a conducive environment for the general public to engage in nutrition related topics on blog posts and you tube contents on child feeding and other parenting tips, provide recipe sharing platform extra and alike activities to better up the lives of many,” she pointed out.
The Ethiopian Herald, March 19/2019
BY FASICA BERHANE
