Nutrition Campaign with Mother’s of infant in Betio

The goal of the pilot Infant Health Campaign is to develop and evaluate a behaviour change communication intervention that teaches families the best ways to feed their babies as infants reach the age of solid foods' introduction. 

             CFK teams with Community Nutrition Leaders

Forty mothers of infants aged 5 months from Betio were invited to join the Infant Health Campaign. These mothers are visited in their homes every month for 4 months and have attended a group cooking demonstration. The home visits will be delivered by trained Community Nutrition Leaders recruited from the Betio community.

 Mothers from three other villages (Eita, Teaoraereke, Banraeaba), will be recruited as a comparison group. Mothers’ nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and practices before and after taking part in the programme will be assessed and compared to mothers in the comparison village who did not receive the intervention, to enable evaluation of the programme.

“I'm truly thankful to be part of this amazing campaign. I also want to express my gratitude to my CNL, who has always supported me and offered valuable advice for my child's meals. I've learned the importance of offering a balanced variety of foods at the right times in the morning, afternoon, and night. This program has been incredibly helpful, and I hope it continues to empower more mothers for years to come,” says one of the participating mothers.

Cooking demonstration session with mothers conducted by CFK nutrition teams.

 Since December 2023 the ChildFund Kiribati team has been working on this campaign, with the assistance of Fni.health nutrition consultants Professors Lisa Houghton and Rachel Brown and VSA volunteer Crissy Sanders. The campaign will run until July 2024 and be evaluated throughout, with the intention of progressing to be implemented as an ongoing ChildFund Kiribati programme. The programme has already demonstrated some great achievements as well as a warm engagement with the Betio community.

Here are some pictures of the team with CNLs from our phase 1 nutrition campaign.