get enough energy food into the child and community development

Because of the work, I do; I worked mostly with women and girls within the age of twelve eighteen years and older in the different communities I worked in. I usually used that forum to sensitize the women and girls I worked with. I told them that for the health of both mothers and children; parents should wait until their youngest child is at least two years old before having another baby. I also told them that children born too close together do not usually develop as well physically or mentally as children born at least two years apart. There was a case in one community in which I worked, one of the family members to give their child in marriage to one of the elders in the community because they owe him a large amount of debt. The father had done all he could to repay his debt but to no avail. The elder requests that if his money was unable to be paid, they should give him their daughter for marriage. The news gets to me whilst I was working in that community, I intervene immediately by telling the family not to agree with the demand of the elder; we took the case to the headman of that community; he was very helpful; he told to elders to give the family some time to repay their debts; I took the opportunity because I am working for NGO call BRAC; I give loan to the wife, she started doing business with the little profit she got from the business, she starts to repay their debts, they have finished paying their debts and the child is still going to school.

There are so many challenges faced in my work; malnutrition and infection hold back the physical and mental development of children in some of the communities that I worked with. Some parents are unable to feed their children properly because of poverty. A child’s stomach is smaller than an adult – so a child cannot eat as much as an adult at one meal. But its energy needs for its size are greater; so the problem is how to get enough energy food into the child.  The answer is feeding the child frequently – five or six times a day. In addition to physical needs, the child also has two other needs which are vital to his or her mental and emotional development; all children need a close sensitive, and loving relationship with the adult/adults who care for them. But in some of our communities, adults do not care about these children, they give birth at random without spacing their births; some have the saying that many children are a blessing from God, and at the end of the day, they either give these children to be married at an early age or involve them in Labour work. I went about these communities sensitize, these parents about the importance of spacing their births; and the importance of going to the hospital when they became pregnant and that to reduce the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, all families should know the warning signs; I also told them that girls who are healthy and well-fed during their own childhood and teenage years have a fewer problem in pregnancy and childbirth.