By Sani Idris
Alive & Thrive, has on Thursday reviewed Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) and government stakeholders’ engagement on activities targeted at improving Maternal, Infant, Young Child, And Adolescent Nutrition (MIYCAN) services in kaduna.
Alive & Thrive (A&T) is a global nutrition initiative to save lives, prevent illnesses, and ensure healthy growth of mothers and children.
It is in partnership with Kaduna State Government while implementing, through selected CBOs in Nigeria, to leverage their local knowledge and experience in supporting efforts to scale up MIYCN services.
At a one-day review meeting in kaduna, the Kaduna Zonal Coordinator of Alive & Thrive, Mrs Sarah Kwasu, said the objectives of the review meeting was to get the CBOs share their implementation experiences from inception to date.
She added that the meeting was also to discuss challenges and best practices that would ensure provision of MIYCN services.
Kwasu, therefore, said the CBOs, being subgrantees of Alive & Thrive with other stakeholders, would discuss way forward and ensure strategic ways for more effective collaboration to improve the MIYCN project implementation.
She stressed the CBOs relevance, noting that they worked in the hearts of communities where malnutrition and undernutrition were prevalent.
“They have valuable local knowledge and experience working in communities that is key to implementing effective nutrition interventions,” she said.
Saratu Aliyu, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of one of the CBOs, Carelink Resource Foundation (CRF), said the meeting was an avenue to learn and unlearn.
She noted that CRF, as an NGO, was dedicated to advocating enabling environment protecting the rights of vulnerable people (women, children and adolescents) with easy access to essential services for their optimal development to full life potential.
Aliyu lamented the challenge of some societies’ beliefs and norms regarding exclusive breastfeeding which the MIYCN advocates for the optimal health of infants.
She, however, said they were seriously making efforts in ensuring the communities deviated from pre-lactil feeding, giving infants Zam-zam and holy water.
She noted that with their emergence as a CBO working for the MIYCN project, the practices had substantially reduced through awareness creation and sensitisation by religious and traditional leaders.
Speaking further about their challenges, the monitoring and evaluation officer said they also encountered poor data documentation in facilities they were implementing MIYCN activities.
She acknowledged the training given to health workers in the Primary Health Cares (PHCs), adding they came across poor data documentations, especially in MIYCN registers.
Aliyu, however, said in addressing the challenges, it was holding meetings with the heads, record officers and monitoring and evaluation officers at the LGA on how they could improve data documentation, and increase training.
She said as one of their focus areas which is health, they were poised to ensure the maximum attainment in the delivery of MIYCN services in Kaduna South and Chukun LGA of Kaduna.
Also, a government stakeholder, Nafisa Yusuf, the Nutrition Focal Person of Makarfi LGA, said they are facing the challenge of inadequate manpower in their PHCs.
She, however, said they were working with the available personnel, trained ad hoc and voluntary staff in implementing MIYCN services.
Yusuf pledged to step down the knowledge and ideas she learnt in the review meeting to other staff in health facilities in the LGA for their capacity to be improved in ensuring functional MIYCN activities.
Also, Sani Samir from Nutrition Unit of the state Primary Health Care Board, said there was availability of enough MIYCN equipment in all the PHCs.
He said the meeting had created an avenue for robust explanation and address of misconceptions which were perceived by the CBOs as gaps, which actually didn’t exist due to lack of information.
He urged the CBOs to continue to work collaboratively with the LGAs nutrition focal persons, monitoring and evaluation officers among others to always be on same page.(NAN)
