With reference to the 2022 Ghana Health Demographic Surveillance Report, four out of every 10 children are anaemic and six out of every 10 pregnant women were also anaemic.

Additionally, two out of every 10 children were stunted as well as one out of 10 children were underweight in the district.

Project

As a bold step towards addressing the problem, World Vision Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), rolled out a three-year project dubbed: “Improved Feeding Practices for the First 1,000 Days Project (IFP)” in the district.

As part of the project, over 1,000 children with micronutrients supplements and more than 5,000 households were reached with dietary diversity to help improve their nutrition. Also, about 600 farmers and over 700 women benefited from a capacity building training to improve the dietary of their children. 

Furthermore, some of the beneficiaries, who were poultry farmers, were supported with 5000 poultry birds who in turn donated two eggs every week to child welfare health facilities for onward distribution to mothers to improve the diet of their children.

Indicators not good

At an event in Sirigu to end the project, Awurabena Quayeba Dadzie, the Health and Nutrition Technical Manager, World Vision Ghana, said the nutrition indicators in the district did not look good, hence the implementation of the project.

She stressed that the project was a nutrition sensitive agricultural intervention rolled out ostensibly to improve the nutritional status of the children and women in the district. 

Gains made

She said considering the objective set for the project, the organisation had been able to reach more than 10,000 children although they targeted to reach about 4,000, saying “ the remarkable feet chalked up was due to the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders”.

Ms Dadzie said even though the project had ended, her outfit had enabled the sustainability drivers with the hope that the relevant government agencies and institutions would work assiduously to sustain the gains made in the project.

She said “as an institution, we are looking at more opportunities and funding support to scale-up the project to rope in five additional districts in the region to benefit from the project”, stressing “ if we get the needed financial support, more children and women will benefit from this project”.

Impact

The Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, while thanking World Vision Ghana, noted that as a result of the project, the district had witnessed a substantial increase in breast feeding rate from 68 per cent to 79.9 per cent among nursing mothers.

He added that data gathered so far demonstrated a significant reduction in stunting from 1.6 per cent to 0.6 per cent. He added that the phenomenon of underweight among children had reduced from 745 to 256 reflecting the power of early nutrition intervention in preventing malnutrition and its long-term consequences.

For his part, the Paramount Chief of the Sirigu Traditional Area, Naba Atogumdeya Roland Akwara III, in a remark, lauded the organisation for the project with the objective of ensuring that children were properly fed.