Stakeholders advocate more awareness to fight malnutrition in Gombe
Some Nutrition stakeholders from Gombe state have advocated awareness creation on how to use local food resources to fight malnutrition in the state.
The stakeholders on Tuesday said that the issue of malnutrition had become a challenge that needed collective efforts to be addressed.
The one-day stakeholders’ consultation meeting with the theme “ Leveraging Partnerships for Sustainable Nutrition Programming in Gombe state”, was sponsored by the Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).
Mr Ambrose Evhoesor, Project Officer, CS-SUNN said for the state to address the issue of malnutrition, there was need for stakeholders to create proper awareness on the importance of nutrition.
Evhoesor stated that communities needed to be enlightened on how they could make use of the available food around them to get the right kind of food that the body requires.
“Most communities in Gombe state have these foods that contain the necessary nutrients required but lack of awareness have denied them opportunity to tap into that advantage.”
He commended the media and other stakeholders for their efforts in the fight against malnutrition.
Evhoesor appealed to breastfeeding mothers to always practice the six months exclusive breastfeeding.
Mrs Comfort Mukollo, the State Co-ordinator of the coalition, CS- SUNN said the challenge of malnutrition in Gombe state needed efforts from all stakeholders to reverse the menace in the state.
Mukollo stated that efforts had been made by the state government and other stakeholders but noted that more needed to be done to reach every malnourished child in several communities across the state.
“This we can do by strengthening awareness on the local food substitutes and how they can be combined to give our children the needed nutrients in the right proportion.”
Malam Alhassan Yahya, Chairman Maternal Newborn Child Coalition in Gombe state said ”if the state government can invest N5 million naira on jingles to sensitise the communities, the result would be massive.”
According to him, the government alone cannot sustain funding to meet the nutritional demand of malnourished children through the procurement of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).
“ We have these foods in our communities because most of us here are farmers yet we have many malnourished children.
“This is unacceptable so we need massive awareness for people to know how to combine these foods to enrich the nutritional content of the foods we give to our children.”
Mrs Ronas Amusa, Gombe state Nutrition Officer said the state government had embarked on the production of the complementary food and produced over 30, 000 sachets of 100g each for the treatment of moderately malnourished children.
Amusa added that a programme by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with the state government through the ministry of agriculture that would help address the challenge of malnutrition would be launched in June.
Highlight of the meeting included the drafting of a 22-point communiqué to be given to relevant stakeholders as part of the strategy to strengthen the fight against malnutrition in Gombe state.
Participants of the one-day workshop were drawn from the government, CSOs, CBOs, FBOs, Academia, Traditional and Religious Leaders, Traditional Birth Attendants, Media, Health workers, and the private partners working in the area of Nutrition in Gombe State.
