The National Nutrition Office reinforces community-level actions through a mass mobilization programme in disadvantaged districts of Antananarivo

The National Community Nutrition Programme Unit, under the coordination of the National Nutrition Office, reinforces community-level actions through a mass mobilization programme in disadvantaged districts of the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo. The first two events were held on 28 January and 5 March 2016 respectively, in the districts of Manarintsoa Atsinanana and Ambatolampy Tsimahafotsy. The National Nutrition Office envisages extending this programme to other districts during the months ahead. In the future, the initiative will be extended to other towns and cities.

A number of activities were organised during these action days, included nutritional education activities, cooking demonstrations and the distribution of free food to 1,000 adults and 500 children in each district. “We offered simple, inexpensive and very nutritious menus based on products available and accessible to all and which should provide workers with over a third of their necessary daily calorie intake”, explained Holy Raobelina, national coordinator of the National Nutrition Office, in Manarintsoa Atsinanana. The meal, comprising cassava with vegetables, and peanuts with moringa, was distributed in the Manarintsoa Atsinana district.

This programme also scales up the activities of community centres, which are the linchpin of community nutrition. Nutritional education concerns all aspects of food security, hygiene, sanitation and health.

The main objective of this initiative is to lead the population to adopt new attitudes that are more suited to current, social and economic, constraints in order to reduce malnutrition at the level of households and the basic community. It also serves to make pregnant women and mothers more accustomed to frequenting the nutrition sites of the National Community Nutrition Programme Unit.