By Chilungamo Missi

Blantyre, December 12, Mana: Fanny Burton from Mwaluza Village in Traditional Authority Ndanga in Mulanje nearly lost her second pregnancy which was almost due. Malnutrition could have been a contributing factor and would have been regrettable.

“I had severe nausea and vomiting, visual disturbance, and swelling on top of having a low body mass index compared to pregnant women of my age,” explains 32-year-old Burton.

Due to this, everyone, including Burton’s relatives, in the village had lost hope that she would deliver a healthy child.

The community’s fear was justified as malnutrition, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), could have dangerous and irreversible consequences on children’s survival, growth, learning, and future earning capacity.

Globally, 51 million children under the age of 2 are stunted and UNICEF estimates that half of them become stunted during pregnancy and the first six months of life when a child is fully dependent on the mother for nutrition.

Thanks to the Afikepo Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture which was introduced in her area. The project being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and UNICEF, in collaboration with Malawi Government, is a multi-sectoral effort that integrates agriculture, health, and nutrition actions to address the problem of food and nutrition insecurity.

The implementation of interventions that increase availability, access, and utilization of diversified foods at the household level, in turn, leads to improved dietary intake of diversified, safe, and nutritious foods among women of childbearing age, adolescent girls, infants, and young children.

Burton, therefore, enrolled in the Community Complementary Feeding and Learning Sessions (CCFLS) under the Afikepo project in 2017 after being identified by the Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA) in the area.

“The HSA advised me to prepare nutritious foods,” she says, adding: “With no time, my weight and health status improved amicably, and I delivered a strong baby.”

However, taking a close look at her daughter, today, now six years old, playing with her friends, Burton is elated.  

Currently, Burton is also expecting another child and she strives to eat nutritious diet adequately as she doesn’t want a repeat of what she experienced earlier. 

The case of Burton is not isolated as several other expectant women and under-five children were wallowing in similar predicaments.

Rhoda Namboya, 37, from Group Village Head Kukada, recalls how her six-month child was saved from the pangs of malnutrition, locally blamed on poor food preparation.

“This is my sixth child, the way she looked at that time was different from her friends as she was not growing properly. She was found with severe malnutrition during the mass screening exercise under the Afikepo Project.

“When I heard that she was suffering from malnutrition, I lost hope, but I was encouraged by an Afikepo Project promoter from our area who facilitated the enrolment of my child in the CCFLS, and her health improved tremendously within 12 days,” testifies Namboya.

Edah Chikwindi, a nutrition promoter for Afikepo in the area, says she is happy that cases of malnutrition in the area are declining after introducing the project.

“We conduct mass screening exercises and children who are underweight are enrolled in feeding sessions.  We prepare porridge, which is made from a mixture of m’gaiwa, groundnuts, vegetables, eggs, and cooking oil.

“When we screen the children again after 12 days, we find that they are no longer malnourished. This was the case with Namboya’s child,” she says.

Chikwindi adds that parents are also urged to practice such cooking practices in their respective homes to ensure that their children continue to live healthily.

The project also brought vegetable seeds and orange maize for the communities under the project’s catchment area to plant in their gardens and ensure that they are food secure.

She says: “Through the project, we were also given tree seedlings which we planted in our gardens to promote the restoration of the environment and combat land degradation.

“We understand there is looming hunger but, in this area, we are using new farming technologies that Afikepo inculcated in us and we always have a bumper yield from a small piece of land. We do not run out of orange maize, beans, peas, and groundnuts. We also practice poultry farming and other livestock to supplement our diet.”

An HAS from Kambenje Health Centre, Maureen Kausiwa, concurs with Chiwindi, noting that growing crops and practicing animal husbandry go a long way in reducing malnutrition levels in the area.

Kausiwa emphasises that it is the goal of the health sector to fully curb stunting.

“Since the inception of Afikepo in 2017, we have reached out to 760 houses in this village to identify households that have children suffering from malnutrition. We go door-to-door together with care group and cluster leaders who monitor their fellow women to see if they are properly breastfeeding their children and practising desirable water, sanitation, and hygiene.

“Since we identified four girls and three boys with malnutrition last year, this area has not registered another case during our mass screening exercise where we measured Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) which also makes us proud that there is a positive impact in the area in as far as Afikepo project is concerned,” she says.

Kausiwa challenges that even if the Afikepo project comes to an end, people in the area will continue to practise what they were taught, saying knowledge is the best gift that can empower people in the communities than projects that offer monetary support, observing that such projects lack sustainability when they come to an end.

She adds that previously people in the area used to believe in myths and misconceptions regarding malnutrition but the project has brought about a mindset change.

Mulanje District Manager for FAO, Misheck Mwambakulu, says Malawi is one of the countries with the highest percentages of children that are stunted, pointing out that the Afikepo project was primarily introduced to address the problem.

He says Malawi was at 36% in terms of children who were stunted when the project was starting, noting that equally, Mulanje District was at 36 percent, a situation which prompted Afikepo interventions, making the district one of the impact areas to ensure that the levels of stunting were reduced.

Mwambakulu adds that Afikepo interventions are aimed at making sure that under-five children, pregnant and lactating women as well as adolescent girls are consuming food that is adequate with nutrients to nip any form of malnutrition.