24 November 2022
Food systems Nutrition and health Agricultural sectors Nutrition

Improving communities’ information and knowledge on agricultural, food and nutrition issues in Guinea

Actualité

Despite the government’s efforts, the Kindia region in Guinea still suffers from high rates of malnutrition. In children, the stunting rate is 29 %, the wasting rate is 10.1 % and the rate of anaemia is 75 %. GRET and its local partners are supporting inhabitants and raising their awareness on best nutrition practices that are appropriate in the local Maritime Guinea context.

An awareness-raising approach based on a nutritional diagnosis

Upstream of lunching the awareness-raising activities, the local GRET team conducted a nutritional diagnosis to evaluate communities’ knowledge, aptitudes and practices around nutrition, healthcare, hygiene practices and improvement of their nutritional status.

Given the results of this study, a workshop was organised with the stakeholders to share and discuss the results of the diagnosis and define actions to be conducted. The recommendations pointed to a lack of information and knowledge on nutrition, food, hygiene and community-based healthcare. This made it possible to develop an awareness-raising strategy and design an awareness-raising tool.

The strategy focuses on the identification of relay persons in local farmers’ organisations, and their subsequent training on nutrition subjects. Their facilitation techniques are also strengthened so that they can support project officers to improve populations’ information and knowledge on agricultural, food and nutrition issues at community level.

These relay persons became familiar with issues related to nutrition and the means of  action possible in their households, thanks to awareness-raising on six main subject areas illustrated using flash cards, as well as cookery demonstrations on feeding practices for children aged 6 to 23 months.

The role of the nutrition relay persons
“My name is Salematou Haba, I am 23 and I have a 13 month-old daughter. When nutrition relay persons were being identified, I was chosen by our village cooperative to represent them because I know how to read and write, but also because I am a member of the group.
With the launch of the nutrition activities, my role is to mobilise everyone – men and women –, to encourage them to participate in our various awareness-raising sessions. I also encourage each participant to contribute during discussions and apply the new knowledge received during awareness-raising.”
Salematou Haba, a nutrition relay person facilitating a session in the village of Kounkounsoly, Kindia/Guinea

The initial feedback is promising

“We learnt a lot thanks to the first two awareness-raising sessions. Before, when I brought yoka khrindé (Soussou for fresh cassava) and Wouré (potatoes) home for dinner, my wife would not agree to prepare them. For her, rice was the only good food that should be eaten every evening. But since we attended the awareness-raising session on food groups and their roles, the women in the village have changed a lot, especially my wife. She now prepares the food I grow in my field, and not just rice as previously.

I also understood that as a husband, I must help out and assist my wife when she is pregnant or when she is breastfeeding our baby.

My wish is not just for the programme to last, but for the awareness-raising sessions to spread to other villages in the locality”, says Fodé Oumar Camara, a beneficiary of the programme, after an awareness-raising meeting.

The programme’s innovative approach also resides in the long-term presence of the nutrition relay persons in each locality. This makes it possible to raise the awareness of a broad range of people – notably women of childbearing age, husbands, mothers-in-law, and local administrative and religious leaders – on the issue of nutrition, hygiene practices, healthcare and the links between agriculture and nutrition. In each locality, the nutrition relay persons facilitate two sessions per month with two different groups.

During these first awareness-raising sessions, the project team shares messages on balanced food intake and its importance in health and wellbeing. There is particular focus on meal frequency, reduction of arduous work during pregnancy, the advantages of exclusive breastfeeding, and support from husbands to make food available through diversification of agricultural production.

I would say that the programme is not just an excellent initiative to strengthen local stakeholders’ capacity on the links between agricultural production and  nutrition, it is also an adequate framework to promote food and nutrition through awareness-raising activities in farmers’ organisations and to improve levels of information and knowledge in communities”, explains Lanciné II Camara, assistant nutrition manager with the ProFiMA project in Lower Guinea.

As part of the Asanao 2 programme, Abdoulaye, a nutrition relay person and member of the Yaguiba group in Yénguélén, works on raising his community’s awareness on best nutrition practices and on links between agricultural production and nutrition

Funded by Agence française de développement, the Asanao programme is conducting and defending the implementation of holistic actions intended to sustainably improve the nutritional status of populations in West Africa. Led by GRET in partnership with the Guinean entrepreneurs’ centre and Osez Innover, the project for the Promotion of mango and pineapple value chains (ProFiMA) is supporting the development of these value chains in the Coyah-Kindia-Mamou region.

The project aims to improve the technical and economic performance of entrepreneurs in the mango and pineapple value chains by favouring access to information on markets and commercial relationships, supporting stakeholders to develop and roll out business plans, strengthening their skills to respond to the markets targeted, and setting up a professional value chain with pineapple ratoon producers for greater autonomy and growth of the value chain.