By Helen Keller Intl | August 7, 2024

We recently spoke to Chum Senveasna, Program Manager for Helen Keller Intl in Cambodia. Senveasna has supported our work on nutrition since 2016. He’s now leading our efforts to support breastfeeding mothers and improve nutrition for women and children across the country.

Global health bodies including the World Health Organization have three main recommendations for breastfeeding.

• Initiate of breastfeeding within one hour of birth
• Exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life
•  Introduce nutritious complementary solid foods at six months of age with continued breastfeeding through two years

Why is exclusive breastfeeding so important during the first six months?

Evidence has shown many benefits of breastfeeding for both babies and mothers. For babies, chief among these is protection against infections when breastfeeding is started within one hour of birth, which helps reduce the risk of newborn mortality. Children who are breastfeed are less likely to be overweight or obese, perform better on intelligence tests, and have better school attendance. It’s even associated with higher incomes as an adult. Breastfeeding also supports the wellbeing of mothers by reducing the risks for breast and ovarian cancer.

What are some of the challenges women face when breastfeeding in Cambodia?

One of the major challenges is a lack of awareness of breastfeeding practices, especially in rural areas. There is also aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes, especially on social media, which contributes to misperceptions about the benefits of formula over breastmilk.

Maternity leave in Cambodia is only guaranteed for three months. So, it can be very challenging for women to continue breastfeeding once they have to go back to work. In addition, many people from rural areas migrate to cities or other countries to find work and have to leave their children with their grandparents.  

Women also may not have the full support of their families. Before I started working with Helen Keller, I thought that breastfeeding was only a women’s responsibility, that I didn’t have a role to play because I am a man. Breastfeeding has such important benefits for women and babies that it benefits society. It is everyone’s responsibility, including men.

What is Helen Keller Intl doing to support breastfeeding mothers in Cambodia?

We’re working on a range of activities to support breastfeeding starting from birth. We train medical staff in the maternity wards of hospitals so that they can provide counseling to women who give birth there. We also promote awareness of breastfeeding’s benefits and education through direct engagement with local communities and social media campaigns.

Another major initiative is working with employers, including garment factories and government institutions, to increase support for breastfeeding in the workplace. Helen Keller educates employers on the benefits of breastfeeding, helps set up lactation rooms, and provides training and education for female workers. In addition, we’re advocating to the government to increase the length of maternity leave from three to six months.

Why is it so important to involve workplaces in these efforts?

In Cambodia, almost 80% of women in the labor force are of reproductive age. For working mothers, once their three-month maternity leave ends, they will need support in the workplace to continue breastfeeding.

Many employers think that supporting breastfeeding will only cost their business money. We’ve helped employers see that supporting breastfeeding in the workplace is beneficial for them and their employees. After our trainings, employee satisfaction has increased, and employers have shown an increased awareness in the benefits of breastfeeding and their willingness to support women.

What about when someone is unable to breastfeed? How is Helen Keller helping ensure babies still get the nutrition they need? 

If a woman is having trouble, trained staff provide support to help them resolve the issue and, if needed, call on experts with the Ministry of Health.

Helen Keller is also helping the Cambodian government ensure the safety of breastmilk substitutes. In 2020, a number of babies got sick from baby formula that did not contain the nutrients it claimed to, and Helen Keller helped the government investigate and address the situation.

Today, we continue to work with the government to adopt international standards for breastmilk substitutes, conduct quality testing on all the brands of formula sold across Cambodia, train inspectors with the Ministry of Commerce to inspect the quality of formula currently in stores, and support the enforcement of strict regulations on the marketing and promotion of breastmilk substitutes.

Help ensure women and children get the nutrition they need.

When Patrice Messolo was a boy, his grandfather and uncle became very sick. They both lost their vision and developed skin lesions on their legs due to what Patrice would later learn was onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness. Without treatment, this neglected tropical disease can cause disfiguring skin conditions and permanent blindness.  

Helen Keller Intl leads USAID’s Act to End Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) | West Program in Cameroon, supported by consortium leader FHI 360. 

Help community health heroes, like Patrice, provide vital care to their communities.

All eyes are on Paris as the world prepares to open the 2024 Olympic Games, a symbol of health, strength, and human potential. France is also preparing to host another global moment: The Nutrition for Growth Summit. This global pledging moment, first held following the 2012 London Olympics, brings together world leaders in governments, philanthropy, businesses and academia, to accelerate progress in the fight against malnutrition.

I vividly recall the 2017 nutrition pledging moment when Mrs. Graça Machel took the stage and kicked off the event by reminding the audience, that, as a mother and a grandmother, she knows “You can never break a promise to a child …” This year I had the great pleasure of visiting Mrs. Machel’s homeland, Mozambique, and seeing first-hand the transformational power of good nutrition, watching Agentes Polivalentes de Saúde – Community Health Workers – deliver vitamin A, counsel families on children’s diets, and screen children for wasting and provide treatment for those children who need it.

Children’s lives are at stake

Malnutrition drives 45% of child deaths and for those children who survive malnutrition their cognitive and physical development is compromised, locking them and their families into a brutal cycle of poverty and exclusion. What I observed in Mozambique and in many of the countries where Helen Keller works illustrates the progress that has been made and what is possible. But the past few years have also been riddled with setbacks. Climate crises, conflict, rising costs of food, and the COVID-19 pandemic are imperiling gains and delaying progress in meeting the world’s nutrition promises to children. When I ask families what the biggest challenge they face in nourishing their children is, the top message is always the cost of nutritious food.

This next Nutrition for Growth Summit is a critical opportunity for the world to recommit to the global goal of ending malnutrition. Delivering on this promise to children and their families will require concerted effort from governments, philanthropies, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations like Helen Keller Intl. With action, we can have a real impact: following a 2022 increase in funding for malnutrition treatment, an additional 2 million children received life-saving services. This Summit comes at a critical juncture – we can either accept backsliding or slowing of progress, or we can catalyze efforts and accelerate action on the promises of good nutrition.

The path to Nutrition for Growth is filled with opportunity

There are many opportunities over the next year to advocate for increased nutrition funding and better nutrition policies. Our partners at Kirk Humanitarian announced the first Nutrition for Growth 2025 commitment in May to provide $125 million to increase access to prenatal vitamins over the next five years. Global leaders will convene at the United Nations General Assembly in September where Helen Keller and partners are ensuring nutrition is on the agenda.

Perhaps one of the most important moments will be the Scaling Up Nutrition Global Gathering hosted in Kigali, Rwanda in November. Nearly 1,000 representatives from governments, communities, businesses, and nutrition experts from more than 66 countries will participate. Helen Keller is serving on the program advisory group to shape priorities and support participation from several countries we work in to elevate the voices of our local partners. This will be a space where government and community representatives can work together to shape commitments for the Nutrition for Growth Summit that will deliver lasting change for families and communities most vulnerable to malnutrition.

Helen Keller is committed to building sound nutrition for families globally

At Helen Keller, we know what works to prevent and treat malnutrition. Each year, we reach millions of women and children with simple, cost-effective solutions to address malnutrition, such as prenatal vitamins, breastfeeding support, vitamin A, improving children’s diets with nutritious foods, and ensuring all children are screened for wasting and treated with therapeutic foods if they need them.

It is this expertise that has led Helen Keller to play a critical role in the 2025 Nutrition for Growth Summit. In addition to Helen Keller’s role at the Global Gathering, I am personally pleased to chair an independent expert group to contribute to the planning of the Summit. Our objectives are two-fold: building on our expertise, we will identify the essential actions needed to improve nutrition and champion nutrition with decision-makers that must deliver nutrition commitments at next year’s Summit.

With Helen Keller Europe, we are working with partners to support the government of France as they shape their plans and priorities for the Summit. In the US, we are advocating with the US government to building on their 2021 commitment of $11 billion over three years to support critical investments to combat global hunger and malnutrition. Previously, the governments of 17 countries where Helen Keller operates in Africa and Asia made commitments, and we intend to support advocacy this year with governments in these regions as well.

No single country, organization, or community can shoulder the burden of malnutrition alone—it will take all of us to end global malnutrition once and for all. The 2025 Nutrition for Growth Summit is one milestone that will help us get there.

Although Maliatou Nignan and her family had been farming for years, they still struggled to grow enough food to feed themselves or earn an income. As Maliatou says, they “worked hard on arid lands” in their community of Zoro in southern Burkina Faso.

That all began to change when the 32-year-old mother of four volunteered to lead a village model farm in Zoro. Working with Helen Keller Intl, Maliatou received training in nutrition-sensitive and climate-smart agriculture practices and has used her new knowledge and skills to improve her own family’s farming practices and help other women farmers in her community do the same.

Climate’s Impact on Livelihoods

Burkina Faso’s economy is largely agrarian, with up to 80% of its workforce employed on small, family farms. Many families like Maliatou’s can’t grow the amount or variety of produce they need to support a healthy diet, and malnutrition is a major problem across the country. About one quarter of children under age five suffer from stunting because they do not have enough healthy food to eat.

These small farms are also vulnerable to Burkina Faso’s extreme weather conditions, which are only expected to worsen with climate change. Increasingly unpredictable weather will make it even more difficult for families to grow and eat healthy foods, putting them at greater risk of malnutrition.

Helen Keller has partnered with communities in the Sissili Province where Maliatou lives to help improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods for women and their families building resilience to extreme weather.

Cultivating Climate-Smart Agriculture

The village model farms serve as educational spaces where women can learn how to start and cultivate home gardens and provide good nutrition for their families, as well as receive farming supplies, including seeds and equipment. Maliatou soon discovered she has a passion for teaching and became one of five elected leaders of the farm and now regularly trains and mentors other women farmers in her community.

Maliatou teaches her neighbors how to adapt to farming in increasingly difficult weather conditions with climate-smart agriculture practices such as effectively managing water, selecting crops for specific climate conditions, and rotating and protecting crops. She has also helped her peers learn about good nutrition, especially for young children, and helped them diversify their crops to include highly nutritious foods like leafy greens and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.

With these techniques, farmers in the village can now grow crops in both the dry and wet seasons, ensuring the households in Maliatou’s community have a continuous supply of fresh, nutritious foods.

“Now we know how to prepare our soils, manage our production plots, and produce a variety of vegetables and tubers throughout the year using less space,” she says. “With the help of Helen Keller Intl, we now grow vegetables year-round using intercropping on the same plot with drought-tolerant varieties.”

Building Nutrition and Economic Security

Maliatou’s own family has also benefited from the expertise she has built as a village model farm leader. She and her husband, Oumarou Dagano, have their own plot of land where they grow a variety of nutritious crops including leafy greens, legumes, and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. Using the farming techniques Maliatou learned they have dramatically increased their harvests.

“Before, we used traditional methods of planting sweet potatoes,” explains Maliatou. “After learning the improved production practices, our yields per hectare have increased, even doubled! Thanks to all these methods, my family can produce and access more nutritious food.”

With their increased production, Maliatou and Oumarou are now able to sell their surplus sweet potatoes and leafy greens to earn an income and improve their family’s financial security.

Matiatou and the women she supports also have the opportunity to join village savings and credit associations, microfinance groups managed collectively by members of the community. Access to financial services is often limited in rural areas, especially for women, and these groups offer a safe place to save, invest, and borrow money to help women develop their financial independence.

“I used the extra income to join the village savings and loan association to support my children’s education costs and the rest for our family expenses,” she says. 

With support from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, Helen Keller has supported nearly 7,000 women with training and resources in agriculture to combat malnutrition and expand their economic opportunities.

Help women like Maliatou create lasting change in their own communities.