The NGO FOCUS 1000 has concluded a two-day training for religious leaders on advocacy for exclusive breastfeeding.
The two days event which ended on Wednesday in Freetown was designed to capacitate the participants on propagating the practice of giving babies breastmilk only from birth up to six months.
Exclusive Breastfeeding is a recommendation by the World Health Organization (WHO) which says breastmilk is the best source of nutrients for newborn babies. Within their first six months in life, they are to be given only breastmilk and not even water.
A total of 120 religious leaders drawn from 15 churches and 15 mosques across the Western Area Rural and Urban, took part in the training. They included Imams and Pastors, as well as the youth and women’s leaders of their respective congregations. The training was conducted at two separate locations within the city.
Christlyn Williams, Programme Manager for Nutrition at FOCUS 1000, said the training is the second segment of a pilot pogramme being implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and the UN children agency, UNICEF. It is part of the government’s ‘Stronger with Breastmilk Only’ campaign, which is a global initiative aimed at promoting Exclusive Breastfeeding.
In Sierra Leone, the pilot phase of the campaign is being implemented in the Western Area (Urban and Rural) and the southern district of Moyamba.
The global target for exclusive breastfeeding is 50 percent by 2025. According to the 2021 National Nutrition Survey, Sierra Leone has already attained above that, with 52.7 percent coverage. The government has since set its national target at 75 percent. Williams said the campaign is being used to achieve that.
The religious leaders are expected to help in this regard, using their various platforms – churches and mosques – as well as other gatherings in their communities. They are expected to do this using specially designed religious texts adopted from messages prepared by the MoHS, backed up with scriptural references from the two dominant religions in the country.
The participants are members of the Christian Action Group (CRISTAG) and the Islamic Action Group (ISLAG), two of the five components that make up the Kombra Network, a coalition of grassroots organizations that also include market women, traditional healers, civil society and KMN as the media arm.
“We are working with religious leaders for them to pass on the information to their congregations at the mosques, the churches and any religious event like naming ceremonies and even marriage ceremonies,” Williams told ManoReporters in an interview on the sidelines of the event.
While data show that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding has increased in Sierra Leone, a major obstacle to the national goal has been the practice of giving water to newborn babies. This campaign, with the slogan ‘Stronger with Breastmilk Only,’ emphasizes on the importance of not giving babies any complimentary food, including water.
Some women complain that their breastmilk is not enough for their babies and therefore they supplement the babies’ food with water. Many others hide behind myths to justify not suckling their babies and instead rely on breastmilk substitutes.
The practice of giving babies warm water or water generally is also based on entrenched traditional practices, making countering it a daunting task. This, said Williams, makes the role of the religious establishment in uprooting it paramount.
“We know that community people believe and trust in their religious leaders,” she Williams said in the interview.
The messages were designed to counter all these myths. And they were compiled into a booklet, comprising a total of nine messages drawn from the Quran and hadith – the teachings of the Prophet Mohamad, as well as the Bible.
Dr Ramdan Jalloh, National Chairman of the Kombra Network and head of ISLAG, presented on the Islamic perspective. He cited the story of Moses, who was suckled by a strange woman, by the help of God, even in that difficult circumstance. This, he noted, signifies the importance even God himself attached to breastfeeding.
“There is nothing that cares for humanity more than religion,” Dr Jalloh told the participants, while emphasizing on the role religion plays in promoting healthy living and wellbeing.
Moses’ story, which is also a well-known biblical one, featured at the top of the presentation of Rev. Christiana Sutton Koroma, Chairperson of CRISTAG. She said that God loves His creation so much that He provides him with a lifesaving gift like breastmilk.
“The Bible says that children are a blessing to the family,” she said, stressing the obligation of parents to help protect their offspring from any harm.
The government and its partners say they intend to use data from this pilot phase of the campaign to expand it to other districts.
“For a long time we have been working on breastfeeding but we found out that we have not been documenting what was happening. So in this campaigner, we want to rectify that by generating data, which we intend to use to solicit resources to enable us expand the campaign to other parts of the country,” said Williams.
