A sad tale is told of a 78-year-old grandmother abandoned with five grandchildren without any means of support than to sell buns (mandazi) in order to get money for food.
Yet another child’s life was cut short when he lost the battle to acute malnutrition. It is one of Tanzania’s biggest challenges that the government has been grappling with for decades.
A sad tale is told of a 78-year-old grandmother abandoned with five grandchildren without any means of support than to sell buns (mandazi) in order to get money for food.
Living in the interior of Ikungi Street of Singida District, the deceased’s grandmother, Hellen Juma, is grappling with life to support her beloved grandchildren who are between the ages of five years and one.
Two of the grandchildren belong to her daughter who has gone to an unknown city in search of better life.
“Once in a while, she sends me some Sh5000 to take care of her children which is minimal and cannot feed us even for one day,” laments the grandmother.
According to her she is too old to farm despite having a farm and therefore relies on the buns, which do not fetch enough money to sustain their daily needs.
She said the other two children including the deceased were abandoned at her house after the father of the children, her son, had quarreled with his wife and had left for Dar es Salaam several months ago and has not communicated with her. Another belongs to one of her daughters who decided to get married to another man. The deceased a one-year-old child had been suffering from acute malnutrition. He and his four older siblings were also suffering from malnutrition through the deceased case was acute.
Senior Doctor in Charge at Singida Referral Hospital, Dr Daniel Tarimo said that the child was admitted with acute marasmus, kwashiorkor plus aneamia.
“The region faces a huge challenge of large numbers of children abandoned under the care of their grandparents who have no means to support them,” Dr Tarimo said.
He said that they normally admit 18 to 20 children per month who suffer from acute malnutrition and during farming off seasons; the situation is so serious that three new children are admitted daily.
Dr Tarimo said that mothers are sensitised during monthly clinic visits on the importance of feeding their children well-balanced diets in order to avoid malnutrition. However, he noted that poverty is a major challenge with a number of families who are unable to provide food for their children especially during the planting season.
“After my son left and life became difficult, his wife left the children with a relative who did not take proper care of them forcing me to take over,” Ms Juma said.
She said that though she loves all her grandchildren, she cannot adequately feed them due to her age. She noted that the children all below the age of six years go without food let alone balanced diets.
Chronic and acute malnutrition among children under five years in Tanzania has shown improvements between 2010 and 2014. Malnutrition is the condition when a person has too little, too much or imbalances in energy, protein, vitamins and minerals.
Malnutrition includes undernutrition which is caused when an individual does not consume enough nutrients for healthy growth and development and the situation of Ms Juma is just one among many across the country.
In order to tackle this has clearly been demonstrated in Mvomero District, Morogoro Region where a three women made a decision to establish a centre to train the public and especially women on the importance of food and nutrition to end malnutrition which is not only rampant in Mvomero but the country as a whole.
According to the Tanzania Demographic House Survey of 2010, the stunting growth due to malnutrition of Morogoro region stood at 44 per cent compared to the New Smart Survey of 2010, which shows that it has dropped to 37per cent
Gaudencia Donati or famously known as (Mama Mchotika) who is the director of Centre for Counseling Food and Nutrition Empowerment in Mvomero District says that they came up with the decision to start the facility after they attended the 2004 Nane Nane trade fair and witnessed first hand how scores of people visited the grounds to learn the best farming practices that will ensure food and nutrition security.
“In view of this, we sat down and came up with a plan to establish the centre in 2004 which will be dealing with creating awareness to the public on best farming practices and ways of having better nutrition for healthy leaving, our centre became full swing in 2006,” she said.
According to her, it was at first a struggle to continue maintaining the status quo but after their efforts were witnessed and appreciated, donors approached them with aim of boosting the centre, which now receives adequate funding that enables them to continue with the training.
Expounding, she said that the reason for the centre was to empower women to be able to use better farming methods that will enable them get enough and quality products that can be used at home and sold as well. “It has been an eye opener especially as majority of women now practice both commercial and traditional farming that ensures their families get nutritious foods from their own produce but are also able to sell some of their produce to buy what they lack from their farms,” she said.
According to her, the centre initially started with a small group of 50 women who were trained on the best farming practices by using demonstration plots that were given by the people who were eager to learn from them.
“It is important that we train them on best farming practices and most importantly when to harvest in order to retain the nutrients needed by our bodies,” she said.
Ms Donati said that the idea was well received by the women from Mvomero and that while their initial target was to get at least 4,800 women taught as trainers to educate other women they were able to surpass the target to 6,000 women by more than 1,200.
In view of this, she said that it was an encouragement that what initially started as a small group was now helping many women to change their lives.
The women are not only trained on the importance of faming vegetables and fruits but also its importance to use them in their meals to avoid malnutrition in children.
“We most especially train them to farm indigenous varieties of vegetables found in our region including the pumpkin leaves that are very important in maintaining health,” she said.
The government needs to prioritise the health sector, which crosscuts all other areas including agriculture and education.
Partnership for Nutrition in Tanzania (Panita) programme coordinator Jane Msagati said it was imperative for municipal councils to increase budget allocation on nutrition.
According to the nutrition budget of 2014, Tanzania allocates only 0.22 per cent of its national budget on nutrition programmes.
Most of these resources are set-aside at national level; while at council level, the situation is not promising.
She said more than 2,700,000 children under five years of age are stunted in the country and 58per cent of the stunted children are found in seven regions which are benefiting from key nutrition intervention.
About 435,000 children under five years of age suffer from acute malnutrition including more than 105,000 severely acute malnourished children with high risk of dying if they do not receive appropriate treatment.
According to proven reports chronic and acute malnutrition among children under five years in Tanzania has shown improvements between 2010 and 2014. Prevalence of stunting growth has decreased from 42 per cent in 2010 to 34.7per cent in 2014. This represents a reduction of 18 per cent since 2010 and 30per cent since 1992.
Prevalence of global acute malnutrition is maintained below 5 per cent.
Prevalence of Underweight was at 13.4 per cent in 2014, which is very close to 2015 target of 2.5 per cent for indicator 1.8 of MDG1.
This represents 46 per cent reduction since 1992. Tanzania is “on track to reach the target indicator 1.8 of MDG1 (50per cent in 2015).
Malnutrition is costing the nation up to Sh 815 million each year, which is approximately 2.65 per cent of the GDP
