11-03-2020 | di COOPI

Mali. Djénèba once malnourished now is safe

Assitan Diakite is the mother of 7 children (6 still alive). She lives in Samabougou, Mali and in order to provide her children with the essentials, especially for her youngest child Djénèba aged 18 months, she used to ask for help door-to-door. 

Assitan is one of the beneficiaries of the project “Health and nutritional response to the multidimensional crisis in the Ségou and Mopti regions, Mali centre” funded by the European Commission (ECHO, Department for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection).

Since 2019, COOPI - in collaboration with the local authorities - intervenes in Samabougou and created a Nutritional Support Group, including all community’s members. On the 9th of October, two members of the group, during a visit at Assitan’s place, found out Djénèba’s severe nutritional state. They reported the case to the local healthcare provider who, thanks to the measurement of her brachial perimeter, confirmed her malnourishment. Consequently, they decided to report the case to the Communitarian Healthcare Center (CSCOM), so that the child could have better assistance, since locally they did not have a scale in good condition for monitoring. As a result, Djénèba was admitted to the program “Recovery Unit and Outpatient Nutritional Education” at the communitarian Healthcare Centre in Boussin. The child was taken into care on the 14th of October 2019 with a brachial perimeter of 97 mm and a weight of 6 kilos.  

ASC, Ségou Region

Assitan, worried for her child survival, walked 14 km every Monday so that Djénèba could receive the weekly assistance needed in Plumpy Nut at the Healthcare Center. On the 25th of November, Djénèba was dismissed from the program and declared ‘healed’ with a weight of 7.9 kg and a brachial perimeter of 130mm. Moreover, Assitan was provided with advice and invited to take part in the Support Group about nutritional activities in Samabougou so that she could keep on going with the project. 

Assitan is thankful to COOPI and its partners: “I am grateful to COOPI and its partners without whom I would have lost another child, right after having lost one. Thanks for explaining to me the effects of this illness, malnutrition, that I ignored, and thanks for having convinced me to follow good practices on child’s nutrition, hygiene and for having informed me of the free service of taking into care of children who suffer from malnutrition. Thanks to you and to the staff in our CSCOM, my daughter is safe and alive”.  

Up to today, thanks to the EU Department for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection funds, COOPI project to prevent and take into care children suffering from malnutrition in the healthcare district of Bankass and Djenné (Mopti Region) and of Barouéli and Ségou (Ségou Region), has addressed 305,531 children aged between 6 and 59 months and took into care 14,469 children. 

Demonstration in Taboala Aire village

Moreover, 175 Nutritional Support Group, composed of 10 members each, were created, 46,534 mothers or tutors received training on how to measure the brachial perimeter and 70,546 pregnant or breastfeeding women have been made aware on good practices.