Our nutrition project in The Gambia has established Mother Clubs to improve the health of babies and young children in rural areas. Each week, the clubs hold cooking demonstrations to train local mothers how to prepare nutritious, bio-fortified food.
Above: Mai and Amadou
Mai is one of the 300 mothers to have benefited from these cooking demonstrations. She adopted her son, Amadou, after his birth mother passed away when he was just six months old. At the time, she was breastfeeding her own child and didn’t have enough milk to satisfy both babies. Mai’s only option was to take Amadou to the Mother Club and learn how to feed this vulnerable six-month-old through the weekly cooking demonstrations.
Amadou is now a happy, healthy two year old – but his story could have ended very differently without the support of the Mother Club.
“I learned how to prepare wholegrain bio-fortified pearl millet porridge to feed Amadou,” Mai says. “This helped me a lot – if not for the knowledge and support of the Mother Club, he would have been malnourished.”
Context:
The EU funded project ‘Reducing micronutrient deficiency of women and children through sustainable and integrated approaches to food fortification’ began in 2017 and has been instrumental in increasing crop production and a variety of biofortified foods for farmers and households alike. With significant impacts on nutrition, value chain addition and market interaction, this project is contributing to the increased consumption of fortified foods across The Gambia.