A battle against hunger and child malnutrition in Timor-Leste

Graciano was 15 months when he was diagnosed with malnutrition.

“After I stopped breastfeeding Graciano, he got itchy skin,” Joseta says. “He was eating less and less. I was worried about his health.”

ChildFund Timor-Leste Community Health Volunteer Odete was visiting the family to monitor Graciano’s growth – as she has done on a monthly basis since ChildFund’s nutrition project began in the community – when she realised Graciano weighed in at only 7kg. She referred Graciano to the local health post, where he was diagnosed and placed on a treatment plan for malnutrition.

Today, Odete is continuing to keep a close eye on Graciano and is ensuring Joseta takes him to regular health check-ups at the health post.

“The biggest challenge for me is there is no food to feed my children,” Joseta says. “I’m a widow and it is difficult to work and raise my children.”

ChildFund’s three-year nutrition project, which is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP), has been running in Joseta’s community for about a year and aims to prevent child malnutrition in six disadvantaged villages in Timor-Leste.

Trained Community Health Volunteers like Odete are regularly monitoring the growth of vulnerable children like Graciano to prevent them from becoming malnourished, and are also educating parents and carers about healthy hygiene practices and how to cook and prepare a range of local nutritious foods to feed their children.

ChildFund will also be helping families grow a wider range of nutritious foods by providing them with seeds and training on how to grow backyard gardens.

Odete says malnutrition has been a “big problem” in her community. Before becoming a Community Health Volunteer with ChildFund she worked as a Family Health Promoter with the Timor-Leste Government for 15 years. In this role, she was responsible for raising awareness about good health practices and collecting health information from families in her community to assist the Ministry of Health develop better health interventions.

While ChildFund’s project has only started in her community, Odete says it is unlike any of the past projects implemented to tackle child malnutrition in her community and she believes it will make a difference in her community.

“A lot of NGOs have come to our community in the past to address malnutrition,” Odete says. “But it was only capacity-building. They did livelihood activities.”

She adds: “As a Family Health Promoter we did not have any training like we did with ChildFund. As a Community Health Volunteer with ChildFund we received training on how to identify malnutrition, how to share information about maternal health to pregnant women, as well as how to conduct food processing/cooking demonstrations.”