Provide Lifesaving Relief to Drought Victims

The East Hararghe Zone of Ethiopia is increasingly affected by chronic and repeated food insecurity due to the ongoing drought, and today, children are even more at risk for malnutrition. In kebeles, or communities, of Garawedaja, Gafra Guda and Awbere in the East Hararghe Zone, our teams are addressing the high levels of malnutrition among children between six months and five years with the Positive Deviance/Hearth program. Jennifer, a member of our Nutrition and Food Security department stresses that, “We work to promote the optimal feeding, caring, and health-seeking practices on a larger scale throughout the community. It’s quite empowering for caregivers – who are often mothers – to know that they hold local solutions to keeping their children well nourished; it’s not brought in by others.”

The Positive Deviance/Hearth program provides the opportunity for community members to teach positive behaviors from households with good nutrition-related practices to households with poorer ones. Jennifer continues on, “The approach uses formative research techniques to really understand the context and identify the optimal feeding, caring and health-seeking practices that are unusual in that they are practiced by only a few households in the same low resource context – but those are what are keeping their children better nourished than the majority of households.”

As Ethiopia is currently suffering from the worst drought in nearly 50 years, resulting in an unprecedented number of underweight children – particularly affecting those between the ages of six months and five years –implementing this program helps rehabilitate malnourished children and prevents new cases of malnutrition.

We are working to reach those with access to available local resources to help improve their nutritional status, yet remain particularly vulnerable, affected by drought or food insecurity. Since 2014, we have been implementing a similar nutrition program in the Wolayita Zone for children aged six months to two years-old. Of the 135 malnourished children who attended and completed Hearth sessions, 123, or 91%, increased significantly in weight. As we expand these efforts into new communities, past communities continue to practices what they learned, addressing malnutrition at its source.

The Positive Deviance/Hearth program taps into the needs and interest by rehabilitating malnourished children and training key community members, caretakers, and local government staff to prevent malnutrition and increase their resilience in the face of crisis. Our teams most recently trained local health staff to identify positive practices of households with well-nourished children in low resource settings, which can be promoted among other families to rehabilitate children as well as prevent malnutrition. We continue to assess the needs to provide the best possible impact in malnutrition prevention, given the ongoing drought and risk for food insecurity, while trained staff communicate improved feeding and caring practices and how to prevent future malnutrition to caregivers.  

We thank you and the GlobalGiving community for your support as we work with the local communities to increase nutrition resilience in the face of ongoing drought.