Stories
January 12, 2023 • 2 min read
28 year old Awatif lives in Kassab Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Darfur. She heads a household of two daughters and four sons, including her four-year-old son, Muayad, who recently became severely malnourished.
With Awatif’s husband, Adam, unable to work due to disability, Awatif works as a labourer in local farms to help put food on the table. But with food prices skyrocketing in Sudan, Awatif has struggled to provide nutritious meals for her family. As a result, her son’s health began to deteriorate. After being diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, GOAL teams were quick to intervene.
Lifesaving treatment
With his life under threat, staff treated Muayad with nutritious plumpy nut peanut paste while he was under constant observation. Fortunately, Muayad was reached in time and managed to make a full recovery.
After Muayad was discharged from hospital, Awatif entered into a Nutrition Impact and Positive Practice (NIPP) circle run by GOAL with support from USAID. The community circle enables families to meet with medical practitioners and learn about low cost diet diversity. The programme helps to prevent malnutrition relapse and encourages parents to practice home gardening. Families like Awatif’s are supported with training, seeds and equipment to help start growing crops in their own garden.
Sustainable change
Awatif’s life has been transformed. She’s now empowered to produce nutritious food for her children at an affordable cost. This summer alone, Awatif’s home garden produced 12 bags of onions, four boxes of tomatoes, and enough watercress and radish to comfortably feed her family.
GOAL Sudan’s Nutrition Supervisor, Hamza Babiker, with Awatif and two of her children, including Muayad (left).
“I became a person with a good nutritional culture and was guided in food diversification and resource management,” Awatif says.
While GOAL’s NIPP programme has helped Awatif’s family enormously, Awatif is also helping to educate her community. She’s become a leader among her neighbours in food diversification and resource management.
As global food prices continue to rise, self-sufficient and sustainable farming practices promoted by the NIPP programme are increasingly important. While empowering local communities, families like Awatif’s can begin to benefit from a reliable source of nutritious, low-cost food. And children like Muayad can look forward to a healthy life.
