Lives changed by a Star
Written By: James Knight
Florence completing the Village Health Team training programme.
“My name is Florence Namayanja and I want to be an advocate for good health and nutrition in my community! Last year, my grandson Jonah was suffering very badly from malnutrition. He stopped breastfeeding when he was 6 months old and did not receive good care after that. He also had an accident before he was a year old, which left him with some really bad burns; this took a while for him to recover from and in the meantime he was not growing well at all.
Helping other mamas at the Nutrition Group
I heard about the Nutrition Group that Revelation Life was running so I enrolled Jonah in the programme last year. One of my neighbour’s children was also malnourished, so I told them about the group and they joined me too. At the group they checked on the children’s progress each week, taught us how and what to feed them and gave us a bag of nutritious, locally-available ingredients to use. I saw both of the children grow so well throughout the programme and thought to myself, ‘If I knew this, I could have helped my grandchild to be well nourished!’ I then heard about the Champion programme and wanted to join for that reason. While training, I learned about all the food groups and how they benefit our bodies, which I did not know before.”
“Now I eat a balanced diet in my own home with my family.”
“I enjoy working with and caring for children and I like to see them well fed. As a Champion, I walk throughout my community and when I see children that are malnourished, I sit with their mamas to teach them how to take care of their children and how to feed them. Being a nutrition Champion involves my time and commitment. At times people ask me to come to their place and I like to be there for them to give advice. Most people know me as a Champion in my neighbourhood and they come to me because they know that I have knowledge in this area. My vision is to deal with all types of nutrition cases in Banda Slum.”
