As part of World Vision International’s commitment to nutrition awareness, an initiative has been launched to organize nutrition dialogues with health stakeholders. These dialogues also include faith actors, particularly leaders. These are meetings within a community where participants are encouraged to discuss and reflect on solutions to malnutrition, especially as we move towards 2028.

The objectives pursued were among others:

• Create a listening space for 20 religious leaders (Christians and Muslims) and give them the opportunity to freely express their opinions on nutritional issues
• Facilitate exchanges between them on nutrition and gather their opinions and understanding.
• Identify and categorize the specific nutritional challenges children face.
• Propose solutions to improve nutrition and reduce malnutrition in children.

Some common ideas noted are:

• Sharing food resources
• Raising awareness about the dangers of malnutrition
• Not wasting food resources
• Training on good nutritional practices.
• The commitments of Religious Leaders.

Several other ideas emerged during the discussions:

• The organization of prayer sessions in favor of the fight against malnutrition.
• The practice of breastfeeding and birth spacing.
• Promoting our local products
• The development of family farming.
• The practice of gardening
• Collaboration and partnership with other structures (inter-religious, NGOs, etc.)
• Strengthening solidarity
• Changing eating behaviors.
• Engagement in Nutrition Advocacy

From the discussions in the groups, the following common challenges were identified:

1. Waste of food resources.
2. Lack of solidarity between populations in terms of food
3. Lack of knowledge of nutritional issues
4. Poor governance of nutritional issues (local consumption)
5. Religious Misperception on Nutritional Issues
6. Lack of love for one’s neighbor according to the holy scriptures

The urgent measures proposed are:

1. Awareness, training, communication on the nutritional values ​​of food
2. Popularize authentic religious information on nutritional issues with a view to breaking taboos.
3. Strengthen local, community and national nutrition governance for bold policy decisions, and effectively monitor the implementation of nutrition policies
4. Implement anticipatory nutritional actions
5. Preventive measures against food and nutritional insecurity
6. Identification of climatic hazards.
7. Identification of people with food and nutrition insecurity
8. Strengthening culinary training
9. Encourage exclusive breastfeeding

Recommendations

1. Intensify such dialogues on Child Nutrition Malnutrition.
2. Supporting religious leaders to raise awareness about child malnutrition
3. Supporting religious leaders in approaches and materials for monitoring and evaluating actions against malnutrition
4. Train religious leaders on the issue of nutrition.
5. Train religious communities on nutritional practices (especially women’s organizations)
6. Provide financial and technical support to structures responsible for anticipating food and nutritional insecurity
7. Provide support to religious leaders for raising awareness of child nutrition and disseminating the results of the training presentation