A tall order

Operated by The Neo Child Initiative, the ReachOut Project provides nutrional counseling and screening to parents and their children in underserved communities, free of charge. Since 2015, the ReachOut Project has supported 20,000 people across 10 communities in the state.

Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) launched a nutrition project in collaboration with the Katsina State Ministry of Health to provide healthcare and support to children suffering from malnutrition. Currently, the organization has four centers throughout the state. Year over year, the centers are seeing an increase in the number of patients, having cared for about 20,000 patients from January 2024 to October 2024 alone.

The local non-profit Nuru Nigeria trained nearly 2,000 women in conflict-affected Adamawa State communities to cultivate backyard vegetable gardens, providing locals with a reliable food source. The program distributed drought-resistant, nutrient-rich seeds and taught women how to integrate balanced, vitamin-rich diets that address malnutrition. Women who participated in the program report measurable health improvements in their families, including fewer illnesses and healthier pregnancies.

"Healthy Mama, Healthy Pikin" is a youth-led nutrition program in Ebonyi State, Nigeria that layers nutrition education into routine immunization days at primary health care facilities. The program teaches parents how to enrich diets with local, affordable ingredients, distributes vegetable seeds for backyard gardens, and trains health workers to provide ongoing nutrition counseling, all in an effort to prevent child malnutrition. Since launching in November 2024, the program has reached over 300 parents and established backyard gardens in more than 100 households.

The Milk Bank Nigeria provides donor breast milk for sick, low birth weight and premature babies in neonatal ICUs across the country to reduce mortality in preterm babies. The Milk Bank Nigeria launched in August 2022 and as of Decemeber the organization had registered four donors who had supplied 33 liters of breast milk.

In the district of Bijapur, a town in India, there was a malnutrition rate of 40 per cent in 2019. In order to tackle the problem officials identified the areas with high malnutrition and directed their efforts to those places. They introduced nutrient rich millets in child care centers. They also created kitchen gardens to provide the community with access to fresh vegetables. Finally, they brought Nutrient Rehabilitation Centers in the community since parents were hesitant to take their children to them. Two years later, malnutrition rates dropped by 12 percent.

Haiti suffered tremendous losses after the 2010 earthquake, exacerbating the devastation in an already impoverished country. In 2015, agriculture in Haiti is a growing business backed by the United States’ Feed the Future Initiative. Nourishment and health of mothers and babies has also improved with the encouragement of breastfeeding and sweet potatoes.

mDoc's Garden in a Box initiative distributes biodegradable seed kits to pregnant women identified through nutritional screening as having critical dietary gaps. The women are enrolled through a structured coaching and referral system in primary healthcare facilities and community outreach points, and receive ongoing support via a digital health platform. More than 300 women have been referred to the initiative and 96% collected a seed box.

Rwanda's Village Kitchen Initiative addresses childhood malnutrition with a community-based nutrition education program that trains parents to prepare balanced meals using local ingredients. Supported by the government, UNICEF, and other partners, the initiative combines practical cooking demonstrations with affordable kitchen gardens that provide fresh vegetables. The program has expanded to all 30 Rwandan districts, reaching 14,837 villages nationwide.

The National Home Grown School Feeding program provides food to schoolchildren to support their health and education while simultaneously supporting local cooks and farmers. During its operation, the program reached millions of students across 3o states and led to a 20% increase in primary school enrollment.