MAYO ZIMBABWE
OPTIMAL INFANT AND YOUNG CHILD NUTRITION AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
INFANT FEEDING ISSUES
• There was resistance to exclusive breastfeeding as they felt only breast milk is not enough especially for big baby boys .
• Myths and misconceptions like the one that a pregnant woman cannot breastfeed are deeply rooted but they were demystified.
• Most children were getting a monotonous diet.
ACHIEVEMENTS
• The forums have reached more than 2000 people.
• The project has managed to reach to some of people in very remote areas who have no or little information.
• The community has already started accepting the initiative.
Karen Jørgensen Mon Dec 16 at 06:12:57 0 like
Thank you Abel for sharing this! How did you change the misconceptions? Did you dialogue or was informationsharing enough? What was the reasons behind the misconceptions?
Abel Mavura Thu Dec 16 at 10:12:54 0 like
Thank you Karen for asking the question. I wanted to keep my story of change thus the reason I didn't dwell much on the problem background, however to answer your question, these where due to the negative cultural practices and the societal beliefs . We used drama to enlighten them about the consequences of the practices and how best they can enjoy the practices that we were advocating for. Usually when we do community forum theatre , we do what we call post performance discussions whereby we open up for dialogue and get contributions from the audience or the members watching the play , we ask them on what they learnt , what could be the best approach of this character and what do we think is best for our community? We don't impose things to them but we share , do Dialogue and come up with best act of the drama which includes them.