Ghana is a poor African nation with tremendous inequality in income distribution. It has substantial mineral and agricultural resources. However, economic and social infra – structure is not well developed, and where available, inadequately distributed, under-utilised or oversubscribed.
Life expectancy at birth is low for a number of reasons. High infant mortality rate, deaths from preventable causes especially maternal deaths, road traffic accidents, malaria, malnutrition, HIV-AIDS. There is a worrying trend of ageing population involved in agriculture as the youthful population indulge in itinerant trading mainly in overcrowded cities and towns.
Malaria – malnutrition – anaemia complex is the number one cause of death among children up to 5 years of age. As the government tries to tackle the malaria with preventive measures and medications, nutrition is yet to catch up as the targets remain practically difficult for the government to cope.
Chronic malnutrition is usually measured in terms of growth retardation. It is widely accepted that children across the world have much the same growth potential, at least to seven years of age. Environmental factors, diseases, inadequate diet, and the handicaps of poverty appear to be far more important than genetic predisposition in producing deviations from the reference. These conditions, in turn, are closely linked to overall standards of living and the ability of populations to meet their basic needs. Therefore, the assessment of growth not only serves as one of the best global indicators of children’s nutritional status, but also provides an indirect measurement of the quality of life of an entire population
Malnutrition in Ghana has been most prevalent under the form of Protein Energy Malnutrition (PEM), which causes growth retardation and underweight. About 54% of all deaths beyond early infancy were associated with PEM, making this the single greatest cause of child mortality in Ghana
In most parts of Ghana, many parents believe that symptoms of illness in their children signify a curse from the gods or punishment from ancestors. Children are taken to traditional healers for spiritual intervention, rather than for medical care.
Home of Life Foundation focus is on educating parents on prevention of malnutrition through proper infant and young child feeding, radio messages and house-to-house visits by health workers and volunteers as part awareness campaign to encourage good feeding practice.
1. We aim to promote the understanding of malnutrition as a medical rather than a spiritual issue, to sponsored health workers to educate traditional healers about the causes of malnutrition and the new community-based treatment programme.
2. We aim to buy and provide mother’s supply of silver sachets filled with soft Plumpy’nut paste, which doesn’t need preparation or refrigeration to feed their children.
3. We aim through our educational programme also to teach mothers to prepare nutritious flour called wean mix, made from corn or millet with pounded soybeans or groundnuts.
This is prepared as porridge and fed to children along with their daily Plumpy’nut ration.
The project would afford mothers and care givers of malnourished children the opportunity to be taught how to prepare nutritious meals out of the locally available food stuff
