Health worker ,Magdalene Siqaza, weighing a baby at the
clinic.
The workshops are held in areas where we have kitchens. The women can purchase low cost food for themselves and their children there each day. Should the women be so desperate that they cannot afford even the 60c which is required for a plate of food, then the health workers will provide them with coupons which they can exchange for food at the kitchen.
Through these workshops which are run in four different areas (Weltevreden,
Gugulethu, Kayelitsha and Tafelsig), an average of 100 women per week are
reached.Some of them stay in the workshops for up to a year, learning all that they can about health and nutrition. They take the information back into their communities with them, and in turn, their neighbourhoods are enriched by this knowledge.
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Our health co-ordinator, Noluthando Mahlati - Fuku, together
with the health fieldworker, Magdalene Siqaza, run workshops with groups of women, usually single, unemployed mothers with infants. In these weekly workshops, they deal with issues such as breast-feeding, the six food groups, oral rehydration therapy, HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis, worms and other primary health care issues. All of these are linked to nutrition and overcoming disease and hunger. In addition to this,
Noluthando and Magdalene weigh and monitor the infants, ensuring that they are
growing correctly.
If they falter, they are referred to the local clinic. At these workshops, mothers receive formula milk
as well as rice cereal to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/Aids, and for whatever other reason they are unable to breastfeed.
A mother
feeding her child at the clinic |
