Child Nutrition

Through our child nutrition initiative, ADI provides direct food relief for children aged six months to five years in Nouakchott, Mauritania. While volunteers prepare and serve food to the children, instructors conduct nutrition and health education for the children’s mothers. The program asks mothers to commit to attend 12 training sessions that take place in a community home over a two-week period. The project offers a direct response to undernutrition by screening for at risk children. The project works for long-term, sustained improvements in child welfare by educating mothers on best practices for hygiene, health, child nutrition, and parenting methods.

ADI formed this two-year nutrition project in response to the personal request of the mayor of Toujounine that a nutrition project be planted into the poorest sector of the community that he serves. ADI patterned this initiative after a successful Nutrition/Education Project for Saadah, Toujounine that began in 2006.

Group training session

The child nutrition initiative facilitates several projects that provide nourishment for malnourished children and educate mothers:

1. Screening and treatment of moderately and mildly malnourished children.

2. Nutrition and educational workshops in the homes of volunteers.

3. Home follow-ups for the children.

4. Support for the volunteers involved in the management of moderate and mild malnutrition.

5. Preparation of complementary meals in the home during the workshop: 4 small meals and 3 snacks.

6. Hygiene education: Hand washing with soap, water treatment techniques (bleach).

5. Nutrition and childcare education:

Conduct educational and life lessons taught by workshop employees and volunteers, repeated during home follow-ups to help mothers master new practices.

Reinforce mothers’ knowledge of nutrition and childcare practices through counseling units.

Encourage play between children, their mothers, and other children.