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Low Women’s Union
volunteers, Phounvah and Manivone, promoting breastfeeding and healthy eating
© UNICEF Laos/2014/B.
Verweij
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Phounvah and Manivone love
their work. On a humid day in Saravane Province, Lao PDR, they again start
walking door to door in a small village to meet new or expectant mothers. As
trained volunteers for the Lao Women’s Union (LWU), they have the critical task
of delivering potentially lifesaving advice to families.
Saravane province has some
of the worst health indicators in the county. One out of every ten infants die
before their first birthday and stunting rates are among the highest in the
world. For this reason, UNICEF and the EU have teamed up with the LWU to reach
out to mothers.
Volunteers from LWU like Phounvah
and Manivone have been trained and provided materials to offer breastfeeding
advice and support to local mothers – advice that if followed would allow
children to survive and thrive.
Their first visit was to Pa,
a 20 year old mother of two. She could clearly see the benefits of
breastfeeding. “I’m exclusively breastfeeding my 6 month baby,” she said
holding her new baby and gesturing to her 2 year old who was almost the same
size. “I didn’t do this with my first child.”
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Pa, a mother of two, is shown information
about breastfeeding and healthy eating by a Lao Women’s Union volunteer
© UNICEF Laos/2014/B.
Verweij
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It was startling to see the how
similar in size the two children were, despite the age gap.
A joint report by UNICEF,
ASEAN and WHO shows that nearly half of children under 5 years of age in Lao
PDR are stunted, or too short for their age. Poor nutrition, including
suboptimal breastfeeding, is one of the key drivers of undernutrition in
children. Children in Lao PDR suffer from many problems associated with
undernutrition; stunting, wasting and anaemia levels are all high.
After visiting Pa the volunteers stroll through the village to meet
other mothers. It’s getting even warmer now and with villagers either working
in the fields or laying in the shade, the only discernible sounds are the
buffalo-bells and crickets.
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Wie, left, learns how to
keep her new baby, and herself, healthy.
© UNICEF Laos/2014/B.
Verweij
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Wie and Lounny welcome the
volunteers to sit beneath a stilted home. “Thanks to their support I learned
how to feed my baby properly,” says Wie. “I also learned how to keep myself
healthy, which is also important.”
But, said Lounny, there were
still challenges. She said some mothers still give sticky rice to their young babies
just to stop them from crying. Next to her home, she told us, a baby was born
at 8am. By 11am, it was being fed rice.
In Lao PDR, only 40 per cent of babies are exclusively breastfed until 6
months of age. Exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months and complementary
feeding after 6 months protects against childhood diseases but it also protects
later in life against diseases such as diabetes.
Lao Women’s Union: critical
partners
When UNICEF was looking for
a partner to promote and support exclusive breastfeeding and appropriate
complementary feeding across Lao PDR, the LWU was the obvious choice.
“To reach as many women and child caregivers as
possible, we needed a trusted and active agent in the local community in order
to keep broad community support,” says Dr Viorica Berdaga, UNICEF’s Chief of
Health and Nutrition in Lao PDR. “It’s a resource that allows you to be present
in every community.”
The LWU has 600,000 members
and is present in every village in Lao PDR.
They have the ability to
access women across the multitude of ethnic groups in Lao PDR and in the many
different languages.
“This contribution from community based workers is
very important,” explains Dr Chandavone Phoxay from the Ministry of Health in
Lao PDR. “We have two main types: Firstly, the village health volunteers who come
from the community level. They are trained for a month in nutrition education
as well as behavioural change communication and health promotion. In addition
to that, the LWU also plays an important role. Some of the LWU members also
became village health volunteers.”
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Pa’s youngest child was
exclusively breastfed and is thriving
© UNICEF Laos/2014/B.
Verweij
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UNICEF supports the
LWU with training, communication materials and job aids to promote appropriate
infant and young child feeding and nutrition in pregnancy and postpartum. Extra
funds were provided for cooking demonstrations to engage women and other child
caregivers on how to prepare nutritious food using local ingredients.
Additional communication materials were made into
visual aids or “memory cards” in order to circumvent the problem of a lack of
written languages and a plethora of spoken languages.
“When you cannot use the written language for
training, you need to be innovative,” Dr Berdaga explains. UNICEF has also
piloted the use of smart phones to convey health and nutrition messages in the
local languages.
Lao PDR is making a good progress in improving infant
and child nutrition. With the help of UNICEF and the EU, and working alongside
groups such as the Lao Women’s Union, it seems likely that greater improvements
can be made.
“Nutrition is very complex,” says Koen Everaert, from
the EU Delegation to the Lao PDR. “It
requires a multi-sectoral approach, multi-stakeholders, putting in place the
correct structures at the national level, at the sub-national level and most
importantly at grassroots level. The biggest work to come now is the scaling up and the rolling out of
these very good policies.”
For Phounvah and Manivone, it’s another day of
gratifying work.
