Educate 357 Moms About Health & Nutrition in Haiti

The Care Group (CG) strategy is a community-based approach to help improve the health nutrition status of mothers and young children.  CGs enable members to become more aware of their challenges and become active participants in health behavior change. Feed the Children (FEED) organizes volunteer mothers into CGs and these mothers become leaders, known as Care Group Volunteers (CGVs). CGVs are trained on specific messages related health and nutrition practices and make a commitment to disseminate knowledge, skills, and practices with other mothers throughout their communities.

Since July, FEED continued to host training sessions for CGVs on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices and hosted meetings with community leaders to recruit new CGVs and initiate new CGs. Supervision visits continued to strengthen the work of the promoters and mother leaders, and coordination meetings were conducted to review progress, validate reports, and plan upcoming activities.

In August, FEED organized a training session for 30 CGVs in growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) and measuring children using brachial perimeter.  These trainings strengthened CGVs knowledge in health and nutrition and was followed by conducting evaluations of CGVs to identify their personal strengths and weaknesses and identify areas for improvement.

In addition to ongoing activities in September, FEED conducted its fourth micronutrients distribution campaign consisting of vitamin A, Albendazole, and prenatal vitamins.

In October, FEED staff and university students teamed up to conduct household surveys to monitor the results of program activities, promote local participation in identifying health priorities, and assess community health status.

The monthly coordination meeting with the field team was cancelled due to security concerns, but despite the political-social problems in the country, recruitment for new CGVs continued for the creation of new CGs.   

Since July, 96 CGVs received training on health and nutrition lessons from health promoters, 805 community women received lessons from CGVs and 3,776 children under the age of 5 benefited, along with their mothers.

Joanisse is a 40-year-old mother and wife raising 4 children - Ruang 21, Claudy 15, Kesnel 8, and Caline 2-months. She and her husband are both vendors in the market. She lives in a community with no access to drinking water and only one health center. Joanisse’s situation was very critical and her youngest daughter was not healthy because she did not know how to feed her properly and she did not understand the importance of exclusive breastfeeding. 

“For me I used to say that my life was meaningless and would hold on just for my kids. My situation was painful. My children were not healthy, especially my daughter, who would often get sick from day to day. There is one health center in the community where we live and the little care that is available is not enough. In spite of everything, the major problem was the poor health of my children especially my daughter.”

A month after giving birth she chose to feed her baby can milk. Despite all of the food she gave her, she noticed that she was not developing. She always had diarrhea and her health was unstable. Finally, she decided to explain her situation to a mother leader and accepted her advice to exclusively breastfeeding her baby. Now her baby’s health is getting much better. She is developing well and looks more like a 4-month old!

“I finally understand that ignorance can be very fatal. I never knew what to do to save my child’s life despite the love for them. This program changed my life and helps secure my children’s health. Now they are fine and my darling daughter is developing wonderfully. The whole community praises the program that continues saving lives.”