Yussuf is a young boy who lives in odaa village in Beled hawa district of Gedo region with his family, the family didn’t have enough food to feed their children therefore, and due to the lack of adequate food intake the young child became severely malnourished. The outreach village has a well-trained community based workers who are actively involved in the nutrition program through community sensitization and awareness in passing and sharing nutrition information and services to the community.
With the help of the community based worker, the nutrition mobile team 1 who works at the village on weekly bases were able to find the case of the young malnourished child and having confirmed that he was sick and needed treatment by taking the MUAC measurement, then they admitted the child to the outpatient therapeutic program, and the time of admission the young child was 31 months old and the body weight was only 7.5 kg, and MUAC measurement was 11.2CM.
Having received the required treatment and stayed at the nutrition program for two and half months, his health was good and he became physically strong and alert. The body weight was now 9 kg and his MUAC measurement shown 12.00 cm and he was further referred to the HIRDA’s TSFP program in order to avoid relapse that is the young child becoming malnourished and coming back to the OTP services for treatment.
It has been HIRDA’s priority to help the sick and vulnerable children in Gedo regioin so we could get a health and strong community that can support themselves. What makes the story interesting was how the nutritioin staff, Community workers and community development committees were able to cooperate and work together for the betterment of the community that lives in the far villages, the nutrition mobile team as an approach of reaching and helping those communities who lived in hard to reach areas was good idea because there are many people who need the health and nutrition services and couldn’t come to the towns for the treatment of their children.
Yussuf’s health transformation has exited many parents and the community members who lived in that village and had eventually led to many people to have a good trust and believe about the nutrition services which HIRDA is implementing through the support of UNICEF and they have appreciated