Child Nutrition project

Purpose, subject and intervention site

Ante-natal care Exclusive breastfeeding

Reasonable supplementary feeding Fetus under 6 months of age from 6 months to 23 months of age

1: Intervention stages to improve child nutrition

In order to achieve these objectives, the project will be involving two components; Child Nutrition and
Household Food Security.

The interventions of the Child Nutrition component include:

i) Improving the knowledge, skills and practice of ante-natal care, breastfeeding, and child nutrition at
home and in the community;

ii) Increasing the availability, accessibility, and quality of a community-based child nutrition
improvement program and ante-natal care for women.

The interventions of the Household Food Security component include:

i)To ensure food security for children in poor families through farming and animal raising activities to
increase food supplies in households.

ii) In addition, one of the aspirations of the project is that; the agricultural production models apply by
farmer households with the project’s support could help increase household income through the sale of
their own products.

In recent years, Sierra Leone economy has made significant developments, but the gap between the
rural areas and the urban areas has increased. A new poverty line has been generated including
problems with health care, household income and the ability to provide sufficient nutritious food to
families, all of which are interrelated to help solve these problems and improve the nutritional status of
vulnerable groups such as ethnic minority women and children, the needs to be a new and
comprehensive approach. The approach needs to be Intervention strategy. The strategic direction for
these intervention programs is to improve child nutrition, reduce the malnutrition rate, and decrease
the proportion of children with stunting in ethnic minority groups living in the poor remote rural areas.
This is evidence by the determination of the project area and the choice of target group.
To also address integrate, multifaceted problems the project will provide interventions to improve
health, nutrition and food security, project focus solely on nutrition. These projects that will be
implementing by ROLAF to improve the nutritional status of children will shown that interventions to
raise awareness, knowledge, and skills regarding nutrition are enough because many of the poor
households, including the ethnic minorities who live in the rural interior areas would have gain good
understanding of appropriate nutritional care for mothers and children, the project will empower them
with good economic conditions to practice what they have learn. Therefore, helping the poor
households to increase their food supply and improve the quality and quantity of nutritious meals given
to mothers and children is essential and critical to improving the nutritional status of children.

The intervention strategy of the Household Food Security component of the program focus;

On introducing, guiding, supporting and encouraging the farmer households in our selected area of
focus to apply models of low-cost agricultural production. These models combined farming, animal
raising, activities and the utilization of agricultural residue and by-products and natural materials.,

These model support the sustainable development of organic agriculture that will ensure a clean food
supply and help to protect the environment. The models that will be introduce by the project are
consistent with the environmental conditions, farmers’ production practices, and development
orientation of the local agricultural sector, and also respect and preserve the value of traditional
agricultural production, The project did not focus on supporting agricultural supplies but instead focus
on the transfer of production techniques to the farmers through training courses and practical guides.
This training enhanced their ability to develop and utilize these models in a sustainable way.

Studies done by ROLAF in the project area showed that in addition to the products from farming and
animal raising activities in households, the regionally available food are still an important source of
nutrition for local people.

So, in addition to supporting farming and animal raising activities to increase the household’s food
supply, the project also encouraged the use of naturally available food in a sustainable way along with
education about natural environment protection. With this approach, the poorest households can
improve nutrition using natural resources from forests, rivers, streams and fields, in addition to
agricultural production activities.

“The project activities to support households in improving Household Foods Security are very
important, helping households have more food supply for meals of mothers and children. If you have
the knowledge but no vegetables and eggs, then how can you cook for your child?”

“The Integrating Household Food Security component in the child nutrition project is appropriate,
because it contributes to increase food supply for the households in order to improve the nutritional
conditions for children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. Especially, the project is located
in the interior rural areas where local people are very poor and their daily meals are simple and lack
nutrients”
“Integrating interventions to improve Household Food Security with the child nutrition project will be
done by the project in accordance with the National Nutrition Strategy. In fact, there will be practices in
the combination of agriculture and nutrition in the project. Agriculture just focuses on supplying enough
food and there has been no orientation for nutrition.

The project’s experience will be very good for making impact, influence and replication “The project’s
support activities regarding Household Food Security are very practical with many benefits to improve
the meals for children and families. They will enjoy these activities very much because the activities will
help improve knowledge and skills of child feeding.

“During the project implementation, family member will plant more vegetable; they always have
vegetables and more dishes. In this meal children have this type of vegetable; in other meals they have
other types of vegetable. The project also supports to raise hens to have eggs to cook soup and porridge
for children. Otherwise, the poor farmer has no money to buy eggs for their children”

For the Child Nutrition component of the project, a behavior change communication (BCC) intervention
will be implement through Child Growth Monitoring (CGM) Day, ROLAF center, ante-natal care and
breastfeeding support group meetings, ante-natal care days at the commune health station, home visits
and counseling, information sharing at community meetings, and through communication materials
such as posters, flashcards, and flyers. These interventions will give the local communities the
knowledge and skills to apply the best practices in nutrition for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers
and children in their homes.

The BCC interventions will be implementing through cooperation between community systems including
Village Authorities, VHWs and ROLAF staff. In order to the availability, accessibility, and quality of the
community- based child nutrition improvement program, the project hold CGM Day on a monthly basis
to weigh, measure, and determine the nutritional status of children under 24 months of age and to
communicate with and educate mothers about nutrition. RoLAF Centers for malnourished children
under 24 months of age will be established in the villages to improve and rehabilitate nutrition for
malnourished children under 24 months of age. Ante-natal care services to improve by enhancing the
quality of pregnancy examinations and counseling provide to women at the commune health station. At
the village level, the ante-natal care and breastfeeding support groups will be established and to meet
on a monthly basis to support and promote ante-natal care and breastfeeding activities.

Educating the behavior change communication of ante-natal care, breastfeeding and health & nutrition
care for mothers and children and family members

Improving knowledge, skills and practice of health & nutrition care for mothers and children in
households

Improving services of health & nutrition care for mothers and children in the community

Improving household food security

Establishing and improving quality of ante-natal care, promoting community-based health & nutrition
care for mothers and children

- Promoting the development of low-cost household agricultural promotion. - Encouraging the use of
natural food supply and environment protection