Proper Nutrition – A Bright Future

Students4Kids: About 80 teams have submitted a project idea to this year’s competition of Students4Kids. The jury decided that your project is among the best. What do you think makes your project so special?

Emaru Emmanuel: The project idea was developed basing on results from a study conducted in Ongino sub-county, Kumi district which revealed high malnutrition rates and need for caretakers’ education about nutrition. The idea of meal plan charts aims at educating caretakers at all levels about context specific examples of proper feeding. This idea is innovative and has not been contextualized in the Teso region.

Hidden hunger is a problem with far-reaching consequences and a variety of causes. How did you come up with your specific idea against hidden hunger in Uganda?

Kumi district was recently hit by prolonged periods of drought and low yields which prompted an investigation into the nutritional status of children under 5 years. In this study, stunting, underweight and wasting were at 35.2%, 22.3% and 15.4% respectively. Therefore, there was need to implement context specific but also transferrable innovations to improve nutrition at family level.

You have until August 26th to work out your idea to a finished concept. What’s the work on that like for you? Are you all working together on the concept or have you for example split up the different tasks?

We currently have a complete draft concept and awaiting input from our mentors. We are working together on the concept by getting everyone’s contributions in the different parts of the concept paper. We meet and tackle a section at a time since we realize the need to incorporate each team member’s ideas and suggestions.

The winning team of the Students4Kids competition will receive 10,000 euros as start-up funding for their project. What exactly would you do with the money?

With this money, we shall be able to facilitate all our project activities as planned in the project timeline. Some of these activities include providing education to caretakers, supporting village resource teams, and facilitating team members during implementation.

You have done a lot of research on the topic of hidden hunger. What did you learn that you may not have known before? What do you think everyone should know about the phenomenon?

I have learnt that hidden hunger is a silent problem not known to many people, including caregivers of children yet it has deleterious effects. Therefore, I think everyone taking care of children must understand that this is a time bomb in children’s health and it is everyone’s responsibility to fight it. Prevention of malnutrition will lead to a better generation of young Ugandan men and women.