Nutrition Society of Nig FCT Chapter celebrates World Food Day with Persons with disabilities

By Ochiaka Ugwu

In a bid to ensure adequate nutrition and proper nutrition 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 Persons with Disabilities in Karomajigi Community.

Speaking at the event held Friday, 16th October 2026 at Karomajigi community, Chairman of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, FCT Chapter, Maj. Edith Ogheneovo Nwachinaemere (Rtd) said one of their missions was to meet the hard-to-reach communities which the Society had been doing for the past four years.

“We choose the PWD Community for this year’s event, because we want to ensure inclusion, participation, diversity and provide voice for the voiceless” she stated.

She noted the desire of the NSN FCT Chapter was born out of the fact that most outreaches were not getting to the hard- to- reach communities, but normally stopped at pre- Urban rural areas and the Primary Health Centre.

She stressed the need to identify with those communities with nutritional needs, for government agencies to come to their aids and affect their lives.

According to her, “We also want them to know that whatever locally available foods in their community can be made into adequate diets to meet their nutritional status. We also taught them how they can grow their own foods through home gardening and some seeds were given to families for planting inorder to practice what they were taught.

“Part of the activities for the WFD celebration were Nutritional Education, Nutrition Assessment/ Counseling, Food demonstration on importance of use of locally available foods to provide adequate diets for their families especially the under 5 children and Home garden/Seeds planting demonstration. We are happy that out of the 36 under five children nutritionally assessed, we discovered Four Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) and Three Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) Children cases. We had a case of twins that had some health issues and they were referred to Primary healthcare in the community. NSN FCT would ensure, the twins received proper medical treatment.

Maj Nwachinaemere, however described this year’s outing as the best since they started Four years ago, noting that they had a lot of partners who supported this year.

Also speaking, President of Rotary Club of Abuja, Guzape, Rotarian Aanuoluwapo Rotimi said Rotary partnered with Nutrition Society of Nigeria FCT Chapter to Innovate today. 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 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”.

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.

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.
Among the partners that supported the event was Community Action for Improved Nutrition (CAIN).