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Tackling Malnutrition in Mugu – With a Focus on Women and Children


Funded by the Innocent Foundation

 

What is it?

PHASE Worldwide completed a three-year project which was delivered between August 2015 – July 2018, funded by The Innocent Foundation. The project aimed to improve access to and intake of nutritional foods for mothers and children in Mugu, Far West Nepal.

Mugu District is part of the Karnali Zone, which is the least developed district in the whole of Nepal, as well as one of the most remote. In the Karnali Zone, 74% of households have insufficient food sources, with 93% of food consumed produced through local agriculture. Families with small land holdings suffer the most during erratic weather. When crops fail, and food prices inflate, it is the poorest that suffer the most.

 

What did the project aim to do?

The project improved access to nutritional foods by offering technical support and resources and increasing communities’ knowledge of good farming techniques. Training was given in animal husbandry, seed production, kitchen gardens and cultivation.

 

What was achieved?

The approaches improved access to nutritional foods and increased knowledge, leading to a reduction in malnutrition of children and an improved diet for the community.

632

female farmers

received technical support.

1,117 farmers received training on vegetable production and nutrition, and 1,168 women took part in ‘1,000 days of childhood nutrition training’. PHASE Worldwide saw a 27% increase in farmers who could make and use polytunnels. The number of parents feeding their children green vegetables eight or more times a month increased by 18%.

PHASE Worldwide will continue to focus on tackling malnutrition and improving agricultural practices in the Far West of Nepal.

 

A Story from Jayakala Karki, 35, Mugu

Jayakala Karki is a member of the PHASE Farmers group, a group formed as part of the Tackling Malnutrition project. Jayakala is 35 years old and is a mother of seven, who lives in the project area of Jima. Before the project started, the Karki family had a very small area to grow crops and vegetables but grew items which only covered 3 months of the year.

As a result, nutritious food was scarce and without yields to sell on, additional income was not being made; without additional income coming in for the Karki’s, Jayakala found it difficult to send her children to school.. The family had previously been assisted by a couple of other organizations who gave them vegetable seeds, but did so without passing on any technical knowledge of how to plant these seeds correctly. This is why the training provided as part of this project is so valuable for the Karki family.

Upon joining the farmers group, Jayakala received training in techniques to make nursery beds, planting saplings, making homemade manure, making organic pesticide, harvesting and earning potential by selling the product. Technicians were able to visit her land and give advice on the best way to treat and maintain the soil. They were also able to help her build a polytunnel, where she was able to grow lots of leafy nutritious vegetables. Finally achieving a good yield from the small piece of land, her family was able to eat plenty of nutritious vegetables, and she was able to sell the surplus, earning money to be able to send her children to school with the equipment they needed. Jayakala has said that she will continue to use the techniques PHASE taught her, so that she can continue to grow more and achieve a steady income to be able to send her children to school regularly. This is a key example of PHASE’s work to break the cycle of poverty and enable communities to provide a better life for their children.

 

 

 


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74%

of households

have insufficient food sources (UN)


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