Tsigab, 28, is married and has two children: a four-year-old boy and a youngest daughter who is one year and five months old. She lives in a remote rural village in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
Tsigab and her husband earn a living by farming the land around their modest house. They grow maize, sorghum, teff, and other food crops. However, when the harvest is insufficient, the family often struggles to meet their basic needs.
During times of drought and food shortages, Tsigab and her husband take on various jobs in the nearby small town to make ends meet. However, finding work is not always easy, and Tsigab sometimes worries about how she will feed her family.
Despite all the challenges they face, Tsigab has managed to keep her youngest daughter well-nourished. Part of the reason her daughter is doing so well is that Tsigab participates in a cooking demonstration program at the health post in her village. There, she and other mothers learn best practices about proper nutrition and childcare.
Tsigab’s story in her own words (Quotes):
“My name is Tsigab. I have two children, and I live here with my husband and our two children, who are four years old and one year and five months old. We are subsistence farmers with limited produce. We depend on our small farm and the animals we raise.”
“I have been part of the village cooking demonstration lessons organized by the health workers, which are held twice a month. During these events, we are taught how to cook and prepare nutritious and healthy foods for our young children, and we also learned about the six food groups. With the new knowledge I obtained from these sessions, I have been able to prepare meals for my daughter using what is available at home.”
“I also planted cabbage, carrots, pumpkins, and other vegetables in my garden, which I add to the porridge I prepare for my daughter. She really enjoys eating the porridge and finds it very tasty. After the lessons, I am able to add eggs and milk when available, making the food rich in nutrients. I believe this helps my daughter become strong.”
“Now, I rely on my backyard garden to put food on the table and provide my daughter with nutritious meals each day, even during harsh times. I no longer need to go to the market to search for vegetables, as I can easily access them in my homestead garden.”
“In the past, many children often got sick due to improper feeding practices and poor sanitation. We used to see many malnourished children in our village before this program started. Since participating in this program, my daughter has never been ill. She is healthy and happy. She has received all her vaccinations, and I was told the only one remaining is the one given when she turns two years old.”
“Through this program, we have learned many things that have positively impacted our health and well-being. We are grateful to Save the Children for bringing such a program to our village. This program means a lot to us; it has made us realize that most of the diseases we worried about are easily preventable. I now understand that with good nutrition, my child has a great chance of performing well in school and going far in life.”
What is Save the Children doing to help Tsigab and others like her?
Save the Children, through funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, implemented an alternative health service program via surge team initiatives. These initiatives aimed to strengthen the collapsed health system in Tigray by delivering highly qualified health services to communities impacted by the prolonged conflict, which had a devastating effect on the overall health services available to the local community.
As part of this initiative and the community outreach program, Save the Children has been conducting participatory cooking demonstration lessons. These lessons are a unique and effective way to teach nutritional concepts and basic cooking skills in a community setting. They help improve mothers’ confidence in the kitchen, enhance their cooking skills, and promote healthier food choices in their diets. The participatory cooking demonstrations involve health workers and mothers with young children aged between six months and two years. This approach ensures that these mothers gain adequate knowledge and skills to prepare nutritionally balanced meals, which is a crucial strategy to tackle malnutrition in children under two years of age.
