Center reducing malnutrition in vulnerable communities in Boondheere

Health and Nutrition

Safiya Haji is 7 months pregnant with her 5^th child. She has been coming to Boondheere Mother and Child Health Center in Mogadishu to get nutritious food and some medical help.

“I feel like everyone here is part of my family, the nurses, the health workers, the administration they all help me. I come to center because of the care,” says Safiya.

The center collects biometric information of pregnant and breast-feeding mothers as well as children from 6 months to 5 years old who are suffering acute malnutrition. After registration, screening and assessment, pregnant women like Safiya and other lactating mothers receive food rations full of nutrients.

Malnutrition remains a public health problem for many women in poor communities and has serious health consequences. “We don’t only intervene and supply food rations, but we create community awareness on the causes and effects of acute malnutrition,” said Farhiya, a nurse/ public health worker at the center.  She usually brings groups of women together in a circle where she shows them posters depicting food that is highly nutritious and other illustrations of situations where they should immediately come to center.

“If your child is vomiting or has diarrhea, if your baby is not growing, that is when you have to come to us, please tell this to other mothers in your neighborhoods, “she advises the women in the circle. She also advises pregnant women on the same issues.

After receiving adequate rations of high quality, nutritious food, Safiya gets her turn with the public health worker for counselling on the nutritional diet she received.

The health and nutrition project is funded by WFP and implemented by CISP in Shibis and Bondhere District.

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