Mothers with children 5 y/o and under attend nutrition training sessions to learn how to prepare meals that meet health needs during developmental years. Staple crops are used so that mothers may learn how to meet these needs with the food they grow locally.
The mother’s group of Koe Ein Tan West village meet for a nutrition training session. The training consists of cooking demos for mothers with children under the age of five and provides nutritious recipes to combat malnutrition.
The village has 16 mothers in the group and their key points for this meeting are as follows:
Goal: Grow the number of healthy "under 5" children in the community.
Plan: Feed balanced meals to the children, practice better personal hygiene and focus on pre and post natal care for the mothers.
Here the cooking demo shows meals for children 6mo - 1yr and children 1-2 y/o. For 6mo - 1y/o: egg, yellow bean and rice. For children 1-2 y/o: fried egg, rice, various vegetable soups made of eggplant, tomato, potato, long bean and yellow bean.
CWS visits with the community in their local monastery and performs the first round of weight, height and arm measurements for the under five children. These kids have never been measured before and record keeping will help track the effects of the nutrition training in the community.
These children are not considered malnourished by Myanmar standards, so many parents believe their kids are healthy. Church World Service, however, uses the world standard for their measurements, which shows a high level of weight and height deficiency.
The mother’s have been practicing the nutrition training for a few months and say the children have grown significantly. An unforeseen result from the children eating more is that the mothers are eating less and becoming skinnier. CWS now must consider how to balance both a mother and child’s diet in the nutrition training sessions so that both are healthy.
children enjoy their snacks after completing their measurements.
In the village Taung Thar Yar, husband, M Kyaw Naing Ray, and wife, Ma Lin Lin Mar, sit with their sons to speak about the benefits of CWS hygiene and nutrition training. The eldest son is 11 years old, the middle son is 5 years and the youngest sons are twins at 11 months old.
“A hen lays about 12-13 eggs at a time and another one laid 15 eggs and only 12 chickens were hatched. The children under 5 are fed 5 to 7 times a day. We have tried to meet as many of the three nutritious value groups almost every day. We trained the children to wash their hands every time after they have passed their daily motions, according to the training being given to us by CWS. We grow eggplants, pumpkin, gourd, rhubarb, and chilies in our garden. We have vegetable meals three times a week. From the CWS projects, we gain a lot of knowledge. The measuring of weight and height has never been taken in our village before. Five years ago there was a cholera outbreak in our village. but not anymore now. We would like to express our gratitude to CWS.”