By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
In its determination to address the challenges posed by Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in Barangoni community in Bwari Area Council, the International Society of Media in Public Health (ISMPH), empowered 30 women with skills and knowledge to improve their standard of living and those of their children.
While the knowledge will enable them to improve their diet, the skills will help them use waste substances to create wealth for themselves.
To effectively achieve this, the NGO donated a machine for production of organic fertilizer to help the women eke a living for themselves.
Speaking, one of the facilitators from Xpediant Global Vision, Hassan Mustapha! who taught the women the processes of producing organic fertilizer, said the fertilizer can be produced with waste such as; blood and bones collected from animals, ash, manure and other decomposed waste.
He said the five elements will be mixed together before granding in the machine to achieve the final result of the organic fertilizer.
He said they have trained various women across Nigeria and their standard of living has improved.
Speaking on what necessitated the programme, Bukola Smith, Programme Officer of ISMPH said, the project was designed as a pilot in Bwari and Kwali to help address cases of malnutrition.
Speaking further on the project funded by European Union Agent for Citizen-driven Transformation(EU-ACT), the programme officer said the communities are communities of choice for people fleeing insecurity from other parts of the country.
“It is also a community with a lot of vulnerable people.
“We chose Barangoni community because of the issues of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). Prior to this, we gathered materials and discovered that malnutrition and poverty is the major problem of the people. We also discovered that despite the fact that it is an agrarian community, they do not have proper knowledge on the kind of diet they should eat.
“What we are doing is to address both issues of poverty and lack of knowledge on nutritious food. We are also having health experts to tell them about locally available food they could eat.
“This training will empower them to be self reliant. We are also happy because these waste are things that are common in the community. Also in the production of charcoal briquettes, they have available materials to use so as to achieve results.
“We believe that when they are able to transfer this waste to wealth knowledge, the standard of living will improve and the issue of malnutrition will be addressed because the women will have more money in their pockets and knowledge to do the right thing and properly take care of their families.”
She added that the machine will be in the Chief’s palace for proper monitoring and maintenance. “We will be monitoring to ensure progress and to ensure that the people take it seriously and the aim of the programme is not defeated.”
On her part, one of the beneficiaries, Florence John, said the waste to wealth training will enable them to be self reliant and get enough resources to take care of their families.
She said they will put enough effort to ensure that the aim of this programme is not defeated.
On her part, Vera Manasseh, said the programme will help address issues of malnutrition in the community.
She said with the knowledge acquired, their children will eat more nutritious food and be healthy.
