24 March 2009
The Nelson Mandela Health District's integrated nutrition programme took the
programme to another level by conducting door to door campaigns. The programme
commenced last year with vitamin A campaigns where community health care
workers were empowered on healthy eating lifestyle, so that they can be able to
go and spread what they have learned to their communities.
On Friday 20 March, Mrs Boniswa Cagwe the community health care worker's
trainer handed over certificates to the community health care workers of
Barcelona location in Gelvandale Township. Mrs Cagwe has been training the
Barcelona health community workers on how to scale babies, on baby charts as
well the importance of weighing babies. This programme has been conducted for
weeks in a shack that sometimes serves as a church for churchgoers as well as a
pre-school for the little children.
Mrs Cagwe said, âAs the department we wanted to make sure that every kid is
healthy. Especially those ranging from the ages of six months to two years, as
those are the ages where kids usually contract diseases easily as their immune
system is not fully developed and strong enough.â The programme has also helped
mothers to be able to detect if a child is getting enough food. âNow they will
be able to know the number of kids in each area and the parents will also be
able to know when their kids are sick, there are still other programmes that we
will be running in this community.â
Issued by: Eastern Cape Provincial Government
24 March 2009
Source: Department of Health, Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecdoh.gov.za)
