Page 41 - EMBRACE Book

Ntagisanimana, Rwanda
40 41

“I am a community and environmental health worker. I they didn’t understand the importance of giving their
work with the community health workers based in this children a balanced diet. They would feed their children
health facility, and I am in charge of seeing that everything until they were full, but they weren’t feeding them a
related to sanitation and hygiene is taken care of. balanced diet.

When EMBRACE began, they asked me if I would like to Change didn’t happen right away. It was step by step. Every
become a Trainer of Trainers. As a Trainer of Trainers, I was month we had a cooking demonstration. Every week the
trained by EMBRACE in all of the key messages of the project. EMBRACE groups would meet and discuss topics related to
After my training, I returned to my catchment area to hygiene, sanitation, nutrition, the whole EMBRACE package.
conduct trainings to all the people who would become Slowly there has been change.
trainers of their own groups. I trained 72 people. I don’t
know how many people they have now trained, however. There is a huge, positive impact in the last three years from
EMBRACE. All the villagers knew how to wash their hands
In our trainings we talked about the prevention of diarrhea, before. But somehow, sickness was still prevalent. But now,
deworming, skin illnesses, tuberculosis, etc. We also talked there is a high improvement. In addition, every person in the
about nutrition and a balanced diet. We taught about village knows to do permaculture now. Around every home
permaculture and how to grow kitchen gardens so that there are gardens from which you can pick fruits and
people can ensure they have a balanced diet, especially vegetables right before eating them. People are enjoying a
pregnant women and children. We also hosted cooking more balanced diet. It wasn’t like this before. This is one of
demonstrations so that people could learn how to cook the the biggest changes since the project. Before EMBRACE,
new vegetables they would be growing, and why these everyone used to cultivate only one kind of vegetable. But
vegetables are healthy for them and their children. now they have gardens and ‘food forests’ with a mixture of
EMBRACE constructed the cooking demonstration shelters in different types of food crops like maize, vegetables, fruit, and
each village. When the women and children come, they cook potatoes.
along with the instructor, and then give the food to their
children. EMBRACE has also reduced the rate of diarrhea and
hookworms at the community level through its hygiene and
I’m very involved with all the activities related to children. I sanitation trainings, hand washing trainings, and the
go every month to the growth monitoring sessions. If we see construction of latrines.
a weakness in a village, we work to correct the situation. We
work with the community health workers to try to improve EMBRACE has helped us in every field related to community
the children’s health. I am very integrated and involved in health such as nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, etc. There is an
growth monitoring at the village level. expression in Kinyarwanda, if you want to describe what’s
been done in this area, it’s like the difference between day
Even though this region of Rwanda is known as the bread and night.
basket of Rwanda, the problem is in people’s understanding.
Before EMBRACE, they grew their crops to sell at the markets EMBRACE has also give this health facility many non-medical
of Rwanda. But EMBRACE has taught them how important it materials. Before we would use buckets as recycle bins. But
is to feed their families first before taking their crops to the now we have updated, modern recycle bins. EMBRACE also
market. So there has been a change at the family level. Some gave us an incinerator so we can properly dispose of bio-
people are surprised to learn that their families are facing hazardous materials.
malnutrition. But after they learn more about nutrition and a
healthy diet, they began to consume their own produce to Many non-governmental organizations have come through
ensure their family had a balanced diet. So over time their here. You could go out in to the communities, though, and
understanding has changed and now there’s an you wouldn’t see any difference that they had made. But
improvement. with EMBRACE, what it’s accomplished here, it’s visual. You
can go to the field and see that EMBRACE has done
Some mothers suspected their children of malnutrition. something that has changed the community’s health and
When the community health workers told them, they weren’t wealth. It has done much and you can see it.”
surprised. But some mothers were taken by surprise because

Photo: © 2019 ADRA | Frank Spangler