Nutrition has been and continues to be one of the biggest problems facing the world today. Organizations around the world have spent an exorbitant amount of time and money to help educate communities where nutrition is an afterthought. Approximately 1 in 9 people in the world were undernourished in 2017, and in fact, more than one-fifth of Africa’s population dealt with undernourishment in 2017. Malnutrition now affects every single country in the world.

These are just the stories of Africa, there are countless other communities around the world that suffer from a lack of knowledge or resources when it comes to nutrition. Globally, 1 in 5 children under the age of 5 experienced stunting of their height due to nutritional deficiencies in 2018. The World Health Organization estimates that if health services around the globe showed a stronger focus on nutrition, it could save up to 3.7 million lives by the year 2025.

Nutrition is globally recognized as part of the second Sustainable Development Goal. Here at illuminAid, we are dedicated to helping increase the progress of these goals through our efforts working with various organizations on their programs. We have conducted numerous projects that concentrate on the category of nutrition. One of our first nutrition projects took us to Alta Verapaz, Guatemala where we worked with Mercy Corps on their “PROCOMIDA project.” This project focused on trying to reduce or prevent child undernourishment by providing healthier food rations and improving their health services. illuminAid trained Mercy Corps staff how to create and disseminate videos that advanced the goals of their project.

Another one of our projects that dealt with Nutrition took us to the African country of Malawi, where we worked with the non-profit organization CARE. During this project, we focused on some different aspects of health and nutrition, specifically infant nutrition. The videos that we helped CARE create will begin the process of transforming the beliefs or attitudes of the communities that have seen the videos. Changing the attitudes about infant nutrition is vital in these communities, as it could be the difference between life and death. Check out some of the videos concerning nutrition that have been made by our partners over the years.