End Malnutrition for 600 Children in Ghana

In Ghana, Self-Help International operates a maternal-child health program called Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC) in two communities in the Ashanti Region. The program focuses on working with pregnant women and continues to partner with those women as their child grows and develops.

Self-Help staff provide counseling and education on accessing prenatal care, exclusively breastfeeding, and appropriate and accessible weaning strategies to ensure that children are getting needed nutrients. 

In the two partner communities, Beposo and Kukubuso, women most commonly learn about the program by word of mouth from active or graduated mothers.

Adwoa, a 28-year-old mother of three, came across a GHFGHC meeting when staff were discussing healthy eating during pregnancy.

“I knew I was at the right place at the right time because I had just found out I was pregnant,” Adwoa said. “I listened to the information offered at the meeting and made up my mind to be part of the group. I spoke to the nutrition officers about my interest in joining the program, and I was enrolled the next week.”

During Adwoa’s pregnancy, she was encouraged to regularly attend prenatal care appointments. 

“There were times I missed my appointments because of the distance from my home to the health center,” Adwoa said.

Adwoa found out she was anemic when she joined GHFGHC, and Self-Help’s nutrition officers advised her on iron rich foods that she could eat. The team also supplied her with a porridge made from quality protein maize (QPM) and some eggs.

“I was reluctant to eat eggs because of a myth about eating eggs during pregnancy,” Adwoa said. “It is believed that if a pregnant woman eats eggs, her child will not have hair on the head when he or she is born.”

“I spoke to Self-Help’s team about my concerns. I received counseling and support, and the staff encouraged me to eat eggs as a healthy source of protein and nutrients,” Adwoa added.

Adwoa heeded all of the advice that Self-Help’s team gave her, and she gave birth to a 7lb healthy baby with a head of hair.

Munira, a mother of three children, joined Self-Help International’s Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC) program in Ghana when she was pregnant with her fourth child. Munira joined the program because of encouragement from a friend who was already enrolled.

Self-Help’s nutritionists in Ghana work with program participants to ensure they are receiving the nutrients they need while pregnant to ensure they stay healthy and can have a healthy birth for their child. Self-Help provides a high-protein porridge supplement to expecting mothers in case they are experiencing any challenges accessing food at home and demonstrates recipes for how they can use locally available foods to prepare healthy & nutritious meals at a low-cost.  

“Before I joined the program I was always told at the hospital during my prenatal care visits that I have a low hemoglobin, but I didn’t understand it’s implication on my baby,” Munira said. “I didn’t know it could lower my baby’s birth weight. All three of my other children had low birth weights as well.”

Self-Help’s nutrition team explained to Munira the implication of low hemoglobin levels on unborn babies and how Munira could use locally available foods to help increase her hemoglobin.

After going through the GHFGHC program, Munira said, “Being part of the program was a great opportunity for me. I gave birth to a healthy baby girl.”

“Due to Self-Help’s nutritional support and their guidance and services provided to me before labor, my fourth child was born at a healthy weight,” Munira added.

Self-Help International facilitates a maternal-child nutrition program, “Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC),” in two communities in the Ashanti Region of Ghana - Beposo and Kukubuso. The program works with expecting and new mothers typically until their child is two years old. In cases where the mother is not able to care for the child or the child has special nutritional needs, Self-Help’s staff does their best to work specifically with those clients and achieve the best outcome for both guardian and child. Self-Help’s nutrition team sat down with one program partner, Mariama, to hear about her experience in the program with her infant granddaughter: 

‘’I can’t tell my story without thanking Self-Help. Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying your best but seem to be unable to improve your situation? That was the situation I was in before joining GHFGHC.

I was taking care of my granddaughter, Mariam, because her mom was sick and unable to care for my granddaughter. The only food I could afford for Mariam was corn porridge and sugar. Before someone in the community told me about the GHFGHC program in Kukubuso, this was all I fed her - from morning until evening. Although Mariam was almost one year old before I joined the program, she couldn’t crawl and she looked malnourished.

Self-Help’s nutrition team advised me on how to take good care of Mariam because she was malnourished. They explained to me how I could help Mariam catch up using a combination of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a high fat and protein supplement for malnourished children); Self-Help’s high-protein porridge, and eggs. Self-Help’s team also taught me how to enrich Mariam’s food using locally available foods, such as orange-fleshed sweet potato or peanuts. 

I was amazed at the improvement in Mariam’s appearance just a few months after joining the program. Even though I live in a cottage outside of Kukubuso, Mariam’s improvement motivated me not to skip any of the program’s meeting days in the community. Mariam, who was having difficulty crawling when we joined GHFGHC, started walking just six months after joining the program. People who knew Mariam prior to joining the program couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the improvement in her health.”

Patience Obour, Self-Help International’s Nutrition Program Officer and Nutrition Team Lead, sat down with Akosua in February 2021 to hear about her experience in the Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC) program in Beposo, Ghana. The GHFGHC program works with new and expectant mothers on proper nutrition for themselves and their babies. 

“My name is Akosua, I am 16 years old, and I am a mother. I became pregnant in my final year of Junior High School.

When I realized I was pregnant, I knew I needed to go for prenatal care but I was afraid because of what I had heard from other teenage mothers in the community. The other mothers said that when they went for prenatal care, the nurses mistreated them because they were teenagers.

I decided to enroll in the GHFGHC program in Beposo because of what I had heard from other mothers about Self-Help’s nutrition team. I heard that they were doing marvelous work for both expectant and lactating mothers in the community. I also had the opportunity to hear Self-Help’s team educating another pregnant woman on what type of food to eat during pregnancy. 

I was a little reluctant to join the program because I am a teenager and I thought I was joining a program for grown-ups, but I decided to be bold and join.

During one of the program’s meeting days, I went to the team and told them that I was interested in joining the program. The team asked me about my prenatal record card, which I didn’t have. I told the team about my fears to attend a prenatal exam, and they explained to me the pros and cons of not attending getting checked.

I changed my mind and decided to attend my prenatal exam, and I am so glad I listened to Self-Help’s advice - I got to learn more about the health of my unborn baby, and I was treated so well by the nurses even though I am a teenager.

I am thankful for the Self-Help team and the nutritional supplement they provide (high-protein porridge and eggs). This supplement was lifesaving for me every morning before my baby was born, and it is now lifesaving for both my child and I. I know the supplement helped me give birth to a healthy baby.”

Since 2018, the Self-Help International Women’s Empowerment Program has supported rice farmers in Adankwame, Ghana to improve their production practices so they can increase their crop yields. Through the program, the farmers are able to access micro-credit loans on time, buy inputs at relatively cheaper cost, and plant in time to catch the early rains.

With increased yields and profits, the women are able to afford nutritious food for their families, pay school fees and hospital bills, and provide for other household needs. They live happily with their families.

The increased rice production resulted in high volumes of rice husks that the farmers didn’t immediately need, so the rice millers resorted to burning the husks. This resulted in environmental pollution. Thick smoke could be seen kilometers away. Self-Help worked with producers to find another use for the rice husks, which cleared the pollution caused from burning them. The solution to this problem also helped solve another problem Self-Help was facing: improving orange-fleshed sweet potato cultivation.

In 2018, Self-Help also started a program to support pregnant and lactating mothers, the Growing Healthy Food, Growing Healthy Children (GHFGHC) program. The program provides postnatal counseling and guidance on how to grow and consume nutrient rich crops like orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) and quality protein maize (QPM), a high protein maize variety. 

OFSP was a relatively new crop for the women in the program to cultivate and consume. With education and training, the mothers in the program adapted and many adopted the crop. In the major rainy season of 2019, 40 out of 80 women planted OFSP, but unfortunately many of the women lost about 60% of their crops to millipede infestations. This lowered their interest in OFSP cultivation. Controlling millipedes in the soil using chemicals was costly, and the women could not afford the necessary products. 

The Self-Help agriculture and nutrition teams worked together and came up with a compost made of rice husk and poultry droppings that supports OFSP cultivation very well. The yield obtained in 2020 using the compost was good, restoring the confidence of the women to go back into OFSP cultivation and consumption. The compost is a boost for container gardening as well. Empty cans, which for years have served as breeding grounds for mosquitoes, are becoming fertile grounds for the production of nutrient rich crops. With increased cultivation and consumption of OFSP and improved access to nutritious foods, Self-Help can continue to work with mothers to ensure that their children will be stronger and healthier.