By Prince J Musa in Kenema
Malnutrition is one of the illnesses that is affecting the growth of children greatly in Sierra Leone.It’s against this backdrop that the government of Sierra Leone has created a secretariat through support from its development partners to help eradicate if not reduce the rates of malnutrition on children affected with the disease. Based on that a secretariat was established under the Office of the Vice President to coordinate and oversee the activities of Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN). The SUN secretariat works alongside other development partners that are implementing programmes on nutrition and other health-related issues.
The district network of SUN has organized training for its members on tackling malnutrition in the district. The SUN members comprise Civil Society Organizations, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, Local Council, the Media and other development partners.
In his presentation at the training, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer attached to the District Health Management Team in Kenema, Ibrahim Tahiru Kawa said the objective of the training was meant to build the capacity of the SUN Network members on health management information system so as to ensure good quality data collection, adding that, the training will enable the network members to facilitate the reduction of malnutrition rates within their operational communities.
He said the training will also bring teamwork amongst personnel that are directly responsible for the collection and collation of data including analysis of data within the health facility and also the district health management team.
Kawa maintained that the session will ensure harmonization of data of both private and public health facilities.
The lead facilitator of the training who is also the district nutritionist, Theresa Lahai said children from zero to five years are mostly affected with chronic malnutrition that causes stunted growth.
She said malnutrition sometimes could claim lives and therefore encouraged the members of the network in Kenema to do all they could in reducing the rates of malnutrition in the district saying, it will help to get a healthy population. Recommendations by participants, on how to intensify the fight against malnutrition in the district, formed part of the training.
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