RUTANA December 28th (ABP) – Community health workers and light mothers in Bukemba, Giharo and Gitanga communes in Rutana province (southern Burundi) have just been equipped with android phones to monitor the Child Growth Promotion (SPC) and a good organization of the Learning and Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (FARN) as part of the Mother-and-Child Nutrition Improvement (ANME) project, a check in Rutana by ABP has revealed.
That endowment was made on the basis of one phone per village to be used by both the community health worker affected there and the light mother following a three-day training on the use of that kind of information and telecommunication tools.
In those phones, a questionnaire called “Come-Care” has been installed inside an application to which the user will have to answer, and the collected information will be transmitted to a server and thus, all the data collected will be condensed into one report to be shared between the project managers.
This 3-year ANME project is being implemented in Rutana province by NGO World Vision on World Bank funding. It consists of two components namely nutrition and food security.
In the field of nutrition, data on FARN are collected. That is, children are tested and those found with malnutrition problems are sent to learning and nutrition rehabilitation centers where they are treated for 12 days, according to Marie Rose Ndikumana, the one in charge of the monitoring of that program in the Giharo commune who was in the team of trainers on the Come-Care application. In those centers, mothers with malnourished children are asked to bring locally produced foodstuffs and are taught how to prepare them nutritionally and give them to children.
As for the food security component, they have initiated the multiplication of fortified organic bean, rich in iron by groups of producers. It is in that context that at the time of the training on the use of those android phones, a field trip was made to assess on the site in Bigina and Gatereni, in Gitanga commune, the achievements made in that framework of the multiplication of the beans and pieces of advice were given to the leaders of those groups as to the proper maintenance of that crop by making good use of harvest, making sure to distribute it not only to all the members but also to all the community members who would like to improve nutrition of theirs.