Media darling

Today was media day! We invited the local media to cover our project and communicate with the people of Swaziland exactly what we are doing in their country! We had the Times of Swaziland, the Swazi Observer , the Mirror and the editor of the only radio station in Swaziland, SBIS. They came and visited the support visits that the ACF nutritionists are conducting in the communities. Support visits are to support the people that we have trained – almost 4000 now. The idea is that they are trained in HIV and nutrition related issues and then they incorporate this new information into the normal activities of their daily work that they do. So, this week the community health workers were screening children in their communities and the media were invited to observe and ask questions. It went really well I think. They had loads of questions and I realised how low the level of knowledge is about nutrition in the general population, not just amongst the uneducated grannies in the communities.



Above is Gcebile, one of our most experienced community nutritionists explaining some concepts to the journalist from the Swazi Mirror. Word has it we will have a spread in tomorrow’s paper. Totally, proper famous. 40 children attend the screening, and all were identified as healthy! With the prevalence of malnutrition around 2%, this is not unusual, and the screenings give a great opportunity to support the community workers talking to the mothers about the topics we taught them. They described the importance of breastfeeding, about what, when and how to introduce solid foods, and links between nutrition and HIV.

Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV in the world. 26% of the adults 15-49 are HIV positive, and nearly 1 in 2 pregnant women are HIV positive. Children who are HIV positive are at a higher risk of malnutrition, and in the treatment centres, the children are twice as likely to die if they are HIV positive. One reason is that they arrive at the treatment centre pretty sick, with advanced malnutrition and HIV related illnesses. This is why we are supporting communities to screen, to identify children before their malnutrition becomes advanced and in that way preventing children from becoming ill and dying. This is with the added value of raising the levels of awareness on the vulnerabilities of people with HIV to malnutrition and what can be done by the community to support them.



All the ladies lining up to have their children checked for malnutrition.



A community health worker making sure a radio journalist knew exactly what the real issues were in the communities!