Ending Child Malnutrition Through Mother Groups

In a village where Chifuniro Lomoliwa aged 20 come from in Phalombe, there were more 20 children under the age of five that were malnourished in 2019.

It was the same year when mother care group was launched in the village of Nyambalo with the guidance of World Vision. It comprises 22 mothers that were trained on raising a healthy baby.

When the group was successfully formed, the members started reaching out to all mothers that had malnourished children, and Lomoliwa has been the leader of the course.

She trained her fellow women how to make porridge that is rich in all the needed nutrients using locally available food material including maize, groundnuts and pigeon peas.

 According to her, when we visited the village at the start of May 2024, there was no single child suffering from malnutrition in their village.

She said the follow up on any mother who falls pregnant, educating them on how to care for themselves throughout the pregnancy.

The mother of two said: “We also teach one another how to monitor the diet once a woman falls pregnant and a proper way of breastfeeding the baby continuously for six months.

 “When the group started we had about 20 malnourished children under the age of five, but after learning of the basics, we started by approaching all mothers in our village and the surrounding. The situation was reversed and we are now at zero.”

The women are able to prepare babies’ porridge rich in all the needed nutrients using the locally available food grown within their areas and they rear chickens that provide eggs rich in proteins.

Her sister, who also has two children, is one of the beneficiaries of the mother group.

When her child was found to be malnourished, she was taught how to prepare the child’s porridge which reversed the child’s situation.

Several families also received sweet potato vines and chickens from the World Vision that would enable them to get the much-needed food.

In Juma village in the same district, several individuals have access to a balanced diet through the organization’s provisions and trainings.

 “If you look at us, we are health, we have proper diets according to what we were taught, and our economic lives have improved which helps us to be health,” one of them Frank Likaka said.

Apart from multiplying the chicken, they sometimes use eggs in preparing meals for their families.

Almost every mother who is a member of Tikondane Irrigation Scheme within the village has knowledge of raising a healthy baby and preparing a recommended diet.