Nairobi, 16 November, 2018. It is time for the government to place a greater focus on adolescent nutrition and for partners and stakeholders in health and nutrition to rally behind the government in ensuring that the policies and guidelines targeting adolescent nutrition are implemented at scale. Recommendations from a pilot project by the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Education (MoE), Nutrition International (NI) and PS Kenya in partnership with three county governments, seeking to prevent and reduce Anaemia among adolescents indicate that investing in adolescents will yield triple dividends including better health for adolescents now, improved well-being and productivity in their future adult life and reduced health risks for their children.
The 2 — year pilot project that ran between 2016 and 2018, sought to prevent and reduce Anaemia among adolescents through optimizing cost effective delivery of an integrated package of nutrition education and Weekly Iron Folic acid supplementation (WIFs) for adolescent girls. The delivery was done through common existing platforms like schools, health facilities and community. The project was implemented in 13 sub-counties: Kitui (Kitui South, Mwingi North and Mwingi Central), Busia (Matayos, Butula and Teso South) and Nakuru (Naivasha, Subukia, Rongai, Njoro, Molo, Nakuru North and Gilgil) targeting a total of 221,374 adolescent girls with WIFs.
The findings pointed to high awareness of the term Anaemia, but knowledge gaps existed around risks for adolescents, causes, symptoms and prevention. A social behaviour change and communication strategy and a comprehensive package of information was developed and implemented through a campaign dubbed ‘Anza kufeel poa’ (Begin to feel good). In addition, a training package was developed to build the capacity of service providers to conduct nutrition education, counselling and WIFs supplementation.
Below are online resources for additional information on the project:
Infographic Summary: https://bit.ly/2Dn38kO
Policy Brief: https://bit.ly/2OJNSkd
About the author
Joyous A.L. Begisen is PS Kenya’s Corporate Communications Manager. Follow Joyous on Twitter: @JoyousBegisen
