Nutrition Society celebrates World Food Day with physically challenged persons

By Ochiaka Ugwu

In a bid to ensure adequate nutrition and proper dietary education to hard-to-reach community, the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) FCT Chapter in collaboration with some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) celebrated 2026 World Food Day with physically challenged persons in Karaman-Jigi Community.

Speaking at the event held Friday at Karaman-Jigi community, Chairman of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, FCT chapter, Maj. Edith Oghenobo Nwachinemere (Rtd) said one of their missions was to meet the hard-to-reach community which the society had been doing for the past four years.

She noted the desire was born out of the fact that most outreaches were not getting to them, but normally stopped at the Primary Health Centre.

She stressed the need to identify with those that want government to come to their aid and affect their lives.

According to her, “We also want them know that whatever they have in their community can be turned to adequate diet. That they have abundant food in their environment that can help them get nourished. We also taught them how they can grow their own food through home garden and some seeds were given to them to achieve that.

“Part of the activities today is nutritional assessment which is trying to know the nutritional statues of the community. We are happy that the 30 under five children we did the assessment on, we only have four Moderate Acute Malnutrition in Children (MAM) case. There is no Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) case.

“Our purpose is to find out their statues. We had a case of twin that had some health issues which we have referred to Primary healthcare. We are able to give them complimentary feeding like Tom Bronw. We have gotten their contacts to get their feedback to monitor the success of the intervention. We must make sure they are not neglected in upscaling nutrition activities” she said.

She described this year’s outing as the best since they started four years ago, noting that they had a lot of partners who supported them.

Also speaking, President of Rotary Club of Abuja, Guzape, Rotarian Aanuoluwapo Rotimi said Rotary partnered with Nutrition Society to innovate, nurture tomorrow and empower them to maximize their potentials in the area of nutrition.

“As Rotarians, one of the key things we do is to empower communities. We are very particular about child and mothers, preventing disease that can actually affect the advancement and development of our society. We want to create the right knowledge around food; they need to know the type of food to eat to stay healthy and attain their full potential in life.

“We are most concerned about nutrition statues of the under five children. We have provided them with Tom Brown and lessons on how to prepare nutritional food. We will come back to track our progress and still educate women on how best to make nutritional food to enable them have access to good nutrition. Healthy child can always compete with his counterpart globally.

“We choose the physically challenged for this year because we want to ensure inclusion, participation, diversity and provide voice for the voiceless” she stated.

Executive Director of Eco-Nutrition Foundation, Olayinka Ofi said the NGO aims to create a future for food security and build a system and innovate to prepare for future nourishment.

Ofi stressed the need to educate the public on food sustainability by bridging the gap between nutrition education and implementation.

While emphasizing the need to innovate today to nourish tomorrow, Ofi said their involvement was motivated by future forward thinking that will create a system to take care of the future.

Fundraising & Partnership Lead of Es-Shemen Hope Foundation, Ekeneme Wilfred Chidiogo said they intend to bring health sensitization to underserved communities given the huge disparity in health and health inequities. She said there was need to protect the dignity of the people, especially the less privileged.