- Promoter: ASA – Acção Social Arcidiocesana
- Recipients: 250 women ages 14-40, 260 children ages 0-18 months
- Harambee Contribution: 17.000€
Description
Context:
This project concerns the Marrere area in the North where the majority of the population lives off subsistence farming and is unable to ensure adequate nutritional levels among the population, resulting in serious health problems. The area lacks drinking water and stable electricity and medical facilities are scarce. Access to health care is impaired due to the great distances between one medical center and another- at least 20km on foot. This initiative is specifically targeted at mothers and children, the most vulnerable groups of the population.
Objective:
This project aims at improving the health and nutritional levels of children in the area of Marrere, Nampula, Mozambico, through health, hygiene and nutritional programs for mothers that have become marginalized. The objective is to increase nutritional levels and reduce the spread of disease through the teaching of correct hygiene and to enhance women’s pediatric skills.
Lucrécia is 8 months old and is malnourished. Thanks to your help, her mother can learn to take better care her.
“We cook underneath a tree because the kitchen still isn’t ready. We don’t have water or electricity,” says Eugénia Ferreira, one of the nurses involved in the project. “We would like to teach these young mothers how to take care of their children, but it’s not easy. The scarce amount of resources available and the bad habits that have been handed down from one generation to the next make everything all that much more complicated.” Cooking classes, along with notions about health and hygiene, make up part of the program Harambee is promoting. “One of the greatest difficulties, for example, is convincing an HIV-positive mother not to nurse and to feed her child artificial milk. But thanks to this action program, things are slowly changing. ” Eugénia tells us about Lucrécia, an eight-month old child who is malnourished and needs hospital care. The mother had very few check-ups during her pregnancy and wasn’t able to take an HIV test. The child was born at home and hasn’t even had one medical check-up in her first eight months of life, as happens frequently. “Enhancing the awareness of mothers and strengthening their skills in early childhood care will pay off in the future. Every day we see small and big results.”
