Other Approaches

HKI is constantly re-assessing programs for effectiveness, and developing new programs that are changing eating habits for the better, and bring training, monitoring, evaluation and technical support for improving nutritional status throughout the world.

Food aid monitoring:

Based on our historical successes in nutrition surveillance, HKI has been invited to work in collaboration with government and community partners to monitor and evaluate the nutritional and economic impacts of Food For Work (FFW) community development activities including infrastructure renovation, skills training, economic revitalization and education. These activities permit participating families to receive a substantial amount of commonly used foodstuffs for young children each month.

Breastfeeding:

The World Health Organization and UNICEF recommend that infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and that breastfeeding should continue well into their second year. HKI promotes breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices as methods of combating malnutrition and its resulting mortality in infants.

Social marketing:

HKI assists governments with the development and implementation of nutrition programs and with social marketing efforts to inform both public health service providers and communities of local health programs.

Changing eating habits:

Sometimes the solution to malnutrition is as simple – and as difficult – as convincing a populace to change their diet or agricultural habits. For example, Mozambicans only grew and ate white sweet potatoes, an important staple of their diet, but low in nutritional value. Over the last few years, HKI-Mozambique and partners conducted agronomic and palatability tests among Mozambicans for vitamin A-rich sweet potatoes. From nearly 50 types, the choice was narrowed to six. In 2000, HKI-Mozambique and partners began distributing vines of the improved orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, helping to stimulate recovery after the disastrous floods of that year. Since then, more than 400,000 families have received vines to start their own sweet potato gardens. Some 100 partners, consisting of provincial and district agricultural directorates, international and national research institutions and NGOs are supporting this program. Communities are benefiting from the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes they grow, both from consumption at home and income generation. This effective and low-cost intervention is being replicated in Burkina Faso and Niger.