The Coordinator of Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria Project (ANRiN) in Kaduna, Dr Zainab Muhammad-Idris, said it has revived about 30,000 malnourished children in the state through myriad of interventions.
Muhammad-Idris, who said this at a one-day stakeholders’ debriefing workshop on Tuesday in Zaria, Kaduna, stated that they have assisted the state in the management of the children who were acutely malnourished.
She equally said that the ANRiN project was largely a preventive intervention against the onset of malnutrition.
According to her, the project has in the past three years reached out to over four million beneficiaries comprising children, lactating mothers, pregnant women and adolescent girls.
As the ANRiN project in Kaduna ends by the end of the year, Muhammad-Idris hoped that all the good work, learning model, key successes and approaches that were used in delivering the project would be sustained and the expected practices sustained across the state.
She also hoped that the knowledge, awareness created and the information that were provided would be put to proper use.
Muahmmad-Idris said, ”We believe a lot of efforts and investments have been made.
”In doing that, we expect the institutions whose capacities have been built and personnel who were trained, especially community service providers and health workers delivering the services to continue even after exit of the project.
“We expect to see better food choices and maternal infant and young-child nutrition practices being upheld in homes and also families and individual imbibing better health seeking behavior in terms of nutrition and other health services
“We expect to see improvement in the health services being provided at the facility level.
”This is why we partnered with the State Primary Health Care Board so as to strengthen our family health care facilities to deliver the services.”
The coordinator stressed that everyone, including families, communities, and any stakeholder that has benefited from the project has a role to play in sustaining the efforts made by the ANRiN project.
She. therefore, said it was expected of every stakeholder especially those at the community levels to play their respective roles.
Muhammad-Idris pointed out that faith-based leaders have been supportive in using the Scriptures in passing information on how families should maintain healthy and nutritious lifestyles.
She added that they were poised in seeing that Kaduna state has no single case of any malnourished child or mother.
“It is doable, and this we aspire to see. At the end, we want to do away with chronic malnutrition which is exemplified by stunting and micro nutrients deficiencies,”she said.
Also speaking to newsmen at the sideline of the event, the Commissioner for the State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), Mukthar Ahmed, restated its commitment to continue to coordinate all the nutrition stakeholders and MDAs.
Ahmed, represented by Hajiya Aisha Muhammad, the Director, Development Aid Coordination, said the State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN), which is domiciled at the PBC, cannot afford to neglect the invaluable contributions made by ANRiN project in the state.
He thanked them for their support, while pledging to sustain their legacies for the betterment of nutrition indices in the state.
Earlier, Hajiya Hauwa Usman, the Nutrition Specialist for ANRiN project in Kaduna, said the workshop was aimed at presenting the progress they have made so far in its implementation.
She equally said it was to critically discuss sustainability plans as the ANRiN project comes to end in the state by end of the year.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the stakeholders at the workshop included Society for Family Health, the State Primary Health Care Board, National Orientation Agency and Nutrition Desk Officers from various MDAs.
Others were: Kaduna Agriculture Development Agency, Kaduna Emergency Nutrition Action Plan (KADENAP) and the Ministry of Local Governments, among others.(NAN)
