Empowering Women to Fight Malnutrition
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When Hard Work Becomes Hope--Local Production of Therapeutic Food in Uganda
By Stacey Freeman - Director of Resource Development, February 13, 2007 04:13 PM
What's red, white, and nutritious all over? Plumpy'Nut, a delicious peanut butter bar that comes in a 3-ounce red and white foil package.
Made by the French company Nutriset, Plumpy'Nut is what we in the humanitarian world call "ready-to-eat therapeutic food." This means that, unlike food powders that must be mixed by experts, Plumpy’Nut is ready to open and eat as is. Mothers can just pick it up and carry it home rather than walking their sick children to a far-away clinic. Packed full of essential vitamins and nutrients, Plumpy'Nut is like a suped-up nutrition bar. The difference is that it is not made for endurance athletes or busy commuters; rather, this revolutionary little bar's purpose is to save children dying of malnutrition.
IMC regularly distributes Plumpy'Nut as part of its therapeutic feeding programs. However, in Uganda we decided to be a bit revolutionary ourselves: we've partnered with Unicef to not only give Plumpy'Nut to needy mothers and children, but to actually teach women to produce the same product in their own communities.
In August 2006 a representative from Nutriset worked with IMC's Nutrition Program Coordinator to produce an easy-to-use manual that teaches mothers how to reproduce Plumpy'Nut using both local ingredients and Nutriset's specially-developed vitamin and mineral mix.
Mothers learned what malnutrition is and what causes it, what a therapeutic food is and why it's important, and finally how to produce Plumpy'Nut themselves--from grinding peanuts to packaging and storing the finished product. Now local farmers are increasing their sales, mothers are teaching mothers about malnutrition, and the children of Pader Province have a sustainable source of nutritious food that's red, white, and 100% their own!
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