Healthy Seeds Project
The Healthy Seeds Project is a capacity-building initiative which aims at providing nutrition education to preschool teachers and parents in Sudan. Through proper selection and utilization of local food resources and reducing the burden of nutrition-related morbidity and mortality, the outcomes of this project should provide preschool children with lifelong positive healthy nutrition behaviors.
Project
Vision: Improved nutritional status of preschool children in Sudan
Mission: To enhance the nutrition education capacity of preschool teachers and parents in Sudan
Target group: Preschool teachers and Parents
Project Goals
- To assess the nutrition knowledge, skills and attitudes of preschool teachers and parents.
- To educate preschool teachers and parents on healthy nutrition habits and practices.
- To train preschool teachers in the development of preschool nutrition curricula.
Needs Assessment
Need assessment for the Healthy Seeds Project was conducted through a focus group of 6 key stakeholders: preschool teachers, administrators of the National Center for Early Childhood Care Development (ECD), Sudan and administrators from the Preschool Directorate at Khartoum State, Sudan.
The daily nutritional intake of the children being targeted at the family level was discussed and observations were noted as:
- Parents do not have sufficient time to prepare meals for the children;
- The children like certain food;
- Parents are not well educated about the importance of consuming a variety of food- types;
- Parents are unable to afford food because of poverty.
At the preschool teachers’ needs assessment level, the following points were noted by the group:
- Teachers do make an effort to advise mothers about good nutrition and actively engage the mothers when they see signs of malnutrition;
- Teachers lack nutrition and knowledge and inadvertently misinform the parents;
- The section on Health and Nutrition of the training package that was developed by the Pre-school Directorate to be used to train preschool teachers in seven skill areas was discussed, is inadequate;
Project Feature
Results / Conclusion:
- Develop two training packages: one for the teachers and one for PTA
- Training of Trainers (TOT) of 6 teachers, 3 from the ECD and 3 from Ahfad Early Childhood Development Center
- Review previous studies to identify recommendations relevant to such training
- Survey each area for existing food and eating habits and work on proper eating habits while conducting the training
- Develop simple songs that children can comprehend and sing to promote good nutrition and physical activity
- Emphasize physical activity as complementary for good nutrition and health
- Modify the existing booklet for follow up of children’s’ meal at school after the training to one that can be used as an evaluation tool by the trained teachers for the nutritional status and food intake of preschool children.
Sudan
%
Expected Outcome
Bibliography
- Global Health Observatory(GHO), Causes of death by WHO region at http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/causes_death/region/en/
- Sudan Plan of Action (2015-2019- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)-Sudan at http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4786e.pdf
- Nutritional status and vulnerability: The spectrum of malnutrition, The state of Food insecurity in the world, Economic and Development Department. FOA Incorporate Document Repository at http://www.fao.org/docrep/x8200e/x8200e04.htm
- Professional training in nutrition education, Nutrition, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at http://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/professional-training/en/
- School Food, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at http://www.fao.org/school-food/en/