Community participation and ownership of program
This Program encourages full community participation in assessing local resources and in designing and taking part in the program. All relevant groups in the community gain full ownership of the program through the following processes:
• Mobilization to register house hold and GMP sessions
• Identification of practices which affect positively or negatively the nutritional well-being of their children
• Discovery of community-based solutions through the Positive Deviance Inquiry
• Elaboration of community-based strategies to solve community problems
• Involvement in the program as volunteers, parents of malnourished children, or
• Village Health Committee members
Establishment of a network of women volunteers at the hamlet level
Volunteers play a critical role in carrying out the main nutrition activities including:
• Supervision of regular GMP sessions
• Management and facilitation of the NERS
• Home visiting (counselling caretakers, sick children, pregnant women and post-partum mothers)
• Monitoring attendance and recording results of NERS
