Children in early childhood development centres (ECDs) in Phalombe district will now be receiving food courtesy of faith based organisation, New Life Anointed Ministries.
With support from Fresch Church international, the pre-school feeding programme which targets over 800 children will run from July, 2018 to March next year at the tune of Mk10 million.
According to the executive director for the organisation Bishop Christopher Kapito, the project aims at improving health status of the children in centres around Waluma Extension Planning Area (EPA) where there was drought and armyworms in the previous growing season.
“As a church we thought that we shouldn’t only be helping spiritually but also physically. We thought of going to Waluma considering that this area was heavily hit by drought,” said Kapito.
He added that in the project they have collaborated with the district’s nutrition office which through Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) will every month be collecting weights of the children and state of nutrition in the selected centres.
District Nutrition Officer for Phalombe, Nelson Mwango, has hailed New Life Anointed ministries for coming up with the project claiming it will really help in reducing further cases of malnutrition in the district.
“This is a welcome development; this project will actually help to find and reduce cases of malnutrition in the Community Based Care Centres (CBCCs) especially for the under five children,” said Mwango.
According to the nutrition office, cases of malnutrition in the district have decreased as in 2010 stunting was at 72 percent and under-weight was at 37.7 percent and presently they are at 37.7 and 11.6 respectively.
