To fight malnutrition, the Kaduna Emergency Nutrition Action Plan ( KADENAP ) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on Thursday inaugurated a food demonstration corner at the Primary Health Centre, Kasuwan Magani, Kajuru Local Government Area.
The KADENAP Chairperson, Aisha El-Rufa’i, said the demonstration corner would serve as demonstration site for recipes from locally available food to help caregivers have hands-on experience on preparation of nutritious meal for children.
Aisha, the wife Gov. Nasir El-Rufa’i, said that the overall goal was to adopt strategies to accelerate responses to improve complementary feeding for children from six to 23 months with a view to reduce malnutrition.
According to her, the demonstration will provide a practical experience for caregivers to strengthen the knowledge they have acquired through counselling and home visits.
“The food demonstration corner is aimed at showcasing the efforts at sustaining Community Infant and Young Child Feeding (C-IYCF) practices of early initiation of breast feeding, practice of exclusive breast feeding and adequate complementary feeding.
She said that Kaduna State, in collaboration with UNICEF, had invested huge amount of resources to strengthen C-IYCF programme in the state.
“This centre will, therefore, serve as a model for other PCHs across the 23 local government areas of the state.
“The state government has through KADENAP procured food demonstration equipment for 27 community management of acute malnutrition’s out patients therapeutic programme in the state,’’ she said.
Also, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Mrs Chinwe Ezeife, thanked Aisha for leading the fight against malnutrition in the state.
Ezeife equally commended KADENAP for scaling up of CMAM sites from two local government areas to five, providing treatment for more than 1,000 malnourished children.
She said that the food demonstration corner would provide practical skills on how to prepare nutritious complementary meal from local food for the healthy development of children.
“This will serve as a model for other LGAs and I called on the state government to ensure that all health facilities in the state have a food demonstration corner.
“Counselling is important, but practical demonstration will make better impact.
“Unicef will continue to partner with the state government in its efforts to reduce infant and child mortality in Kaduna State,’’ she added.
Earlier, Kajuru Local Government Administrator, Malam Aminu Zangon-Aya, said the food demonstration corner would be scaled up to five PHCs in the LGA, adding that necessary materials had been procured and installed.
He commended the state government for making all necessary efforts to curb infant and child mortality in the state’s health sector.
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