From awareness to action: How community-driven nutrition education is transforming diets in Kisumu’s informal settlements
When it comes to building healthier communities, healthy habits need to take root – and behavior change is the fuel needed to drive this agenda.
- food security
- nutrition
From awareness to action: How community-driven nutrition education is transforming diets in Kisumu’s informal settlements
When it comes to building healthier communities, healthy habits need to take root – and behavior change is the fuel needed to drive this agenda.
The Food System Lab in Kisumu (FSL-Ki), Kenya, through the HealthyFoodAfrica (HFA) Project, has been at the forefront of promoting nutrition behavior change communication to improve the diets of community members, particularly of women and children between 6-24 months of age, who face many nutritional and food insecurity challenges. Working hand in hand with a team of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) and supported by the Kisumu County nutrition team, we set out to disseminate simple, context-specific, and practical nutrition messages to boost healthier diets for women and young children. The whole process was participatory and started by gathering ideas from different stakeholders and community members in Kisumu regarding suitable nutrition messages for their context. Using these ideas, we developed nutrition education materials, including posters, flyers and local recipes. Our goal was to improve women’s, mothers’, and caregivers’ knowledge of appropriate complementary feeding, food safety and hygiene, and dietary diversification for the whole family using locally available foods and ingredients.