|  Hunger is the way a person's body signals that it needs to eat, and malnutrition is a lack of the right nutrients in the body. Over 56,000 children under the age of 5 die each year in Uganda from nutrition-related causes. About one-quarter of the population is unable to secure adequate food for all or part of the year. This exciting three way partnership is giving market parents in Kampala the skills and knowledge they need to grow and provide nutritious foods for their children.
We asked 200 parents working at Nakawa Market about their children’s daily food intake. 80% of parents interviewed felt that their job was done once they had fed their child and stopped the hunger. Despite many vendors selling fruits and vegetables in the marketplace, we found their own children to be poorly fed and some were severely malnourished.
Under the new partnership, Ka Tutandike is training parents who work in the marketplace on how to combat child malnutrition. They have been attending classes run by Mwanamugimu, experts in child nutrition.
Parents are also learning how to organically grow fruit and vegetables. The parents, with help from Central Broadcasting Service (CBS), have set up demonstration gardens at two day care centers on the edge of the market. Achiro Lilian is one of the parents being trained in Organic farming. She is very active and doesn’t miss a day. She says ”the skills I’ve got from this training like spacing of crops, tools for use and soil conservation, I will use for the rest of my life even when I go to the village. I sincerely appreciate Ka Tutandike trainers for giving us the skills”. She wants to plant yams on a large scale in future.
Ka Tutandike has been working very closely with these day care centers to make ensure that market children have maximum opportunity to learn through play whilst their parents are at work. All fruits and vegetables harvested by the parents will be used by the day care centers for children’s meals. |
