This talk by Mrs. Marjorie van Wyk, from Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services who is also Namibia’s Focal Person for the global SUN Movement is part of: “Namibia’s Journey Towards Nutrition and Food Security” – A series of engagement talks to share insights, experiences and ideas on how to ensure optimal nutrition for everyone in Namibia.

On 21 April 2021, Mrs van Wyk, Senior Nutritionist and Chief Health Programme Officer within the Ministry’s Directorate Primary Health Care Services, shared her experiences of overseeing all nutrition-related interventions Namibia, where she deals a lot with community nutrition.
She elaborates on how Namibia is currently revising its Food and Nutrition Security Policy with two of the four objectives centering around overcoming malnutrition, specifically the prevalence of undernourishment and significantly reducing rates of stunting.

She explained the consequences of malnutrition with multiple practical examples and visuals. She touched on the three indicators (stunting, underweight & wasting) and particularly went into more depth regarding stunting in terms of definition, causes and consequences, hereby using a variety of graphs and images and to highlight the need for interventions, where she highlighted the link between malnourishment and lack of access to water and hygiene.

She also spoke on child mortality and stated that the most important and effective intervention to reduce child mortality is for mothers to breastfeed within the first hour of life and then to continue breastfeeding as long as they can.

She ended with an overview of micro-nutrient deficiencies and highlighted the need to take action around good nutrition.
Her talk was followed by an interactive session with comments and questions from the audience, and you can also follow Marjorie on Twitter.