Malnutrition among young children continues to decline!

We are continuing our fight against child malnutrition. The various screening campaigns for severe acute malnutrition that we have been running since 2019 have significantly reduced the number of malnourished children.

By 2023, annual screening has been carried out in over 6,000 families in the 47 villages of N’Dali, where we started the project in 2015, and in 16 villages of Tchaourou, where we began in 2022.

Among these families, our 13 social workers screened at least 12,100 children aged between 6 and 59 months, 50.07% girls.

In Tchaourou, the malnutrition rate fell from 8.83% at the start of the project to 2.9% in 2023, a drop of 5.93 points in less than two years. This 5.93% drop is partly due to our Mother-Child Couple Nutrition and Health Promotion (PNSCME) project, through which we promote the importance of balanced, healthy meals in local communities.

We also refer severely malnourished children to hospitals or medical centres for intensive treatment. Children suffering from moderate malnutrition are monitored at home. In N’dali, the malnutrition rate has fallen from almost 12% to 1.52% in five years.

However, we aim to ensure that no child in our intervention zone will suffer from malnutrition in a few years and to extend our scope of action further.

We’re pleased with the results, but follow-up and preventive action by social workers remain essential.