Short description

Our idea is to train health workers to distribute supplements with micronutrients from local health clinics and run radio, television and other forms of media campaigns on hidden hunger. Additionally, we want to engage men more in their families’ health.

The problem we aim to solve

We want to tackle hidden hunger because of how strongly it affects women, girls and children who are important to the growth of the nation. Women lose a lot of blood during birth (especially in caesarian births). If they have an iron deficiency, they may lose their lives in the process, since it can result in anemia. It can also cause poor or delayed development of unborn babies which may result in a stillbirth. Further symptoms of iron deficiency include low energy levels and general fatigue which limits the ability to work. This phenomenon of hidden hunger is particularly of interest to us.

Our solution

We want to increase training programs for health workers to make sure that they are educated on hidden hunger and are able to properly distribute supplements in local health clinics and villages. We want to encourage more health workers to volunteer to train others and distribute supplements. There needs to be an increase in the supply of micronutritional supplements to local Ugandan communities

In each Ugandan community, we want to form groups of men who meet regularly to gather new information on hidden hunger and which groups are at risk. Then, they need to discuss how they can engage in combating it in their families, for example by buying foods rich in micronutrients like fruits, vegetables, milk. We should also encourage them to inform their fellow men on the contents of their meetings.

We also want to start campaigns on micronutrient deficiency. We want to run social media campagins on platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram; We want to pay television stations and radio stations to run programs or advertisements on hidden hunger, focusing on its causes, effects, solutions, and groups at great risk; We want to pay newspapers (such as Daily Monitor, New Vision, Bukedde, and other local newspapers) to publish articles on it; We also want to message friends directly and ask them to keep forwarding the messages to their other friends raise awareness. We also want to hold community gatherings and have already trained leaders of communities to talk to the locals about hidden hunger.