NCA for improved child nutrition

Malawi: Secretary General of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Dagffinn Hoybraten, has stated that his organisation is working with local partners to strengthen programmes that will help improve child nutrition in the country.

He made the remarks on Saturday during NCA's board visit to Kambuwe Village in Mchinji district, where Anglican Council in Malawi (ACM) is implementing the TRANSFORM programme, which aims to improve child affairs as well as promote climate-smart agricultural practices, among other things.

Hoybraten stated that the NCA's goal is to ensure that children in the country are not malnourished and have access to early childhood education.

"We want to ensure that every child is malnourished-free and has access to education at an early age," Hoybraten says.

"In terms of early childhood education, we will help to facilitate the establishment of early childhood development centres in various districts across Malawi where children can access education at an early age."

He thus praised its local partner, ACM, for combating childhood malnutrition and assisting children in Mchinji district, particularly in Kambuwe village, to gain access to early childhood education.

"ACM is doing commendable work in Mchinji district, and through its intervention at Kambuwe village, we have learned that children from the village are no longer suffering from malnutrition, which is incredible," he said. "We have also seen that children from Kambuwe village have access to early childhood education, which is a crucial aspect in the development of every child.”

In his sentiment, ACM General Secretary Edward Chisala emphasised that when they first started their project in Kambuwe village, many children were malnourished and not attending school.

"By the time we started our project in Kambuwe village, there was a high malnutrition rate among the children in the village, and many children were not attending school; as a result, we determined that it was a good target area to implement our project."

"Since we started the project in 2020, there have been no cases of malnutrition recorded at Kambuwe village, and a lot of children from the village are now accessing early childhood education at the Early Childhood Development Centre that we established in their village," Chisala explained.

He also stated that the ACM's goal with the TRANFORM programme is to reach out to many villages in the Mchinji district and beyond.

Apart from Mchinji, the NCA board also visited Dowa, where their partners are implementing the TRANSFORM Program.