NUTRITION ON YOUR DOOR-STEP: EMPOWERING LOCAL PEOPLE TO PROMOTE NUTRITION WITH MORINGA OLEIFERA PLANT
Seventy percent of Nigerian food is derived from low-nutrient cassava. With so much dependence, its nutritional value must be complemented. Project will empower local people to use Moringa plant, through practical trainings and media education to plant, process and use its leaves in enriching soups for everyday consumption.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Henry
Last Name
Osadolor
Website
http://None yet
Organization
CENCOMDEV Centre for Community Development
Country
Nigeria
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
CENCOMDEV Centre for Community Development
Organization Website
http://None yet
Organization Phone
+234 802 899 8184, +234 805 260 1155
Organization Address
Lane 4 Blk6 Plt 6 T-Junction Area, off Victory Intl Church, Oluyole Extension, GPO Box 17091 Ibadan 200 001 NIGERIA
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
Nigeria
Your idea
Name Your Project
NUTRITION ON YOUR DOOR-STEP: EMPOWERING LOCAL PEOPLE TO PROMOTE NUTRITION WITH MORINGA OLEIFERA PLANT
Country your work focuses on
Nigeria
Describe Your Idea
Seventy percent of Nigerian food is derived from low-nutrient cassava. With so much dependence, its nutritional value must be complemented. Project will empower local people to use Moringa plant, through practical trainings and media education to plant, process and use its leaves in enriching soups for everyday consumption.
Website URL
http://None yet
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
“I believe that if you give people an understanding of the basic causes of what confronts them, they will create their own program and when the people create a program, you get action.” (Malcolm X). Project is rural-focused and service oriented by empowering local people to use nutritious Moringa plant, locally available but neglected for promoting nutrition, unlike urban-based profit-driven firms producing or importing expensive food supplements. Seventy percent of Nigeria’s 144m people is rural. Participants will form the nucleus of micro-entrepreneurs for growing and marketing Moringa products. From their income, they will save into micro-credit fund run by coop groups into which they will be facilitated. Training will target especially women and young females, who are culturally responsible for preparing family meals and thus best placed to promote project goal. Trainees will be mostly selected from high schools, community/public health workers, organized social, community and faith-based groups. Because of its implicit income potential, participants will be motivated to provide land for planting Moringa trees. Access to rural land is easy in Nigeria.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
No
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
In September 2007, with facilities funded by the Japanese Embassy in Nigeria, my present organization started production of cassava-based Gari Classica (approved and registered by Nigerian National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Contract (NAFDAC) and fortified with Vit-A. The main raw materials, cassava tubers, are procured from local farmers at prices more favourable to them than obtainable at the local markets. From a weekly production of 100kg when we started in 2007, we now produce and sell over 10,000kgs monthly, thereby making Vit-A (for better nutrition) available to more families, especially women and children, through GARI, the most popular, most accessible and most affordable Nigerian staple food. Through this initiative of promoting Moringa for nutrition, I am expanding access of poor households to take more active part in improving their own capacity and capability to address their own felt-need. So far, I have been a Resource Person at two national events (Inauguration of Cassava Value Chain Platform in Umuahia in January 2009 and Inauguration of Cowpea/Soybean-Livestock Value Chain Platform in Kano in March 2009) on how to to incorporate Moringa leaves with residues to enrich livestock fees. I have also promoted Moringa at different sessions, including with faith-based groups. Through my efforts, over 2000 persons have become aware aout the value of Moringa. During many of these sessions, I have freely distributed seeds and printed materials on Moringa.
Problem
Primary problem is MALNUTRITION that thrives because: commonest weaning food is ‘pap’ which is only a thin pudding from cornstarch or other similar starch; some families simply can’t afford nutritious foods; in many families, young children are cared for by relatives rather than parents and are often neglected. Also, intake of essential micronutrients is hampered by poverty and ignorance as most poor people eat to fill up rather than to nourish. For instance, a daily of Apr 29/08 said: “With malnutrition contributing 54% of Under-5 mortality rates in Nigeria, experts at a 1-day media brief on Infant Nutrition Feeding have blamed present poor nutritional statistics on ignorance of basic nutrition education, particularly at local level.” In the name of ‘modernization’, Moringa and many other medicinal plants have been neglected. Project will contribute to reversing this situation as Moringa has great potential for rapidly reducing Nigeria’s malnutrition.
Actions
Project will empower local people to use Moringa plant, through practical trainings in planting, processing and using its leaves in enriching soups for everyday family consumption. What is Moringa? “Moringa is one of the world’s most useful plants. This fast-growing tree is grown in the tropics for human food, livestock forage and water purification. It is one of the world’s most nutritious crops. Gram for gram, the leaves have more beta-carotene than carrots, more protein than peas, more vitamin-C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas, and more iron than spinach.” MC Palada (Univ of Virgin Islands) and LC Chang (Asian Vegetable Research and Devt Centre). “Although few people have ever heard of it today, Moringa could soon become one of the world’s most valuable plants, at least in humanitarian terms.” (Noel Vietmeyer, US National Academy of Sciences). “A major advantage to Moringa is that it is a local resource readily available, unlike many of the ongoing programs designed to fight malnutrition but depend on imported products.” (Lowell J Fuglie, Moringa Oleifera: Natural Nutrition for the Tropics).
Results
“In the long run, public education and better diets may eliminate the needs for supplementation.” Domingo Pinero, Steinhardt Sch of Educ, New York Univ. Long term desired outcome is to see malnutrition rate in pilot communities dropping to less than 50% of national average, in 2-3 years and to zero, after 5 years, by promoting access of infants and young children to nutritious diets, thus making malnutrition to lose its death-grip on Nigerian children! Along with planting approx 1m Moringa trees yearly, project will benefit approx 20,000 households and 100,000 persons over 5-years. At least this many people will be taken out of malnutrition circle. Better income for participants will enable them to contribute to project expansion. Resulting directly from my work, lives will be changed in ways that include: Moringa will become commonest backyard plant in many communities; people will become informed and have access to local resources for improving nutritional status; participants will be nucleus of micro-entrepreneurs for growing and marketing Moringa products. From their income, they will save into micro-credit fund run by coop groups into which they will be facilitated.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
Starting Year 1 and all through Years 1-3, aggressive media public education will be adopted to ensure well informed populace. Project will have a Project Management Team (PMT)to give direction; participants will be organized into coops to provide structure for efficient management; project products will be sold for income. From this, project will set up micro-credit fund to support participants to expand activities. Training will target especially women and young females, who are culturally responsible for preparing family meals and thus best placed to promote project goal. Participants will be mostly selected from large membership-base agencies: high schools, public health workers; organized trade, social, community and faith-based groups. Year 2: Producing ‘how-to’ or ‘teach-yourself’ manual on Moringa trees development, processing & application. Increasing access of infants & children (indeed all family members) to nutritious diets will become an easy reality & malnutrition will lose its death-grip on Nigerian children! Training will target all family members but greater emphasis on women & young females, who are culturally responsible for preparing family meals and thus best placed to promote and sustain project ideals. Year 3: The successful implementation of project will make it a model that might influence government (at any level) and other community groups to adopt it as a realistic strategy for addressing the challenge of malnutrition in Nigeria. Project activities will be documented and widely disseminated. Because of local ownership and implicit income generating capability that will promote sustainability, project will be self-perpetuating and self-sustaining after the initial external support.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
There are many socio-political, environmental and technical challenges that could negatively affect project. However, to mitigate the effects of any such development, a number of steps would be put in place, such as: 1) Employing competent/committed personnel; 2) a strong commitment to capacity development, through ongoing training and retraining for project participants; 3) Monitoring/Quality Control: There will be a Project Monitoring Team whose TOR will include development of instruments (forms and procedures) for ensuring that various project activities are undertaken as specified in the project plan; materials and other inputs are reaching the specific locations in due time; to identify where there are unexpected issues/constraints and challenges; to determine whether project outcomes, deliverables/outputs match predetermined targets and if not, why and to decide what corrective action(s) to be taken; to determine what should be done to change course from the original plan/strategy, if the unexpected happens; to identify and specify alternative courses of action, given the new challenges; to monitor the tree-planting performance of each project member, family, group or institution.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Idea phase
In what country?
Nigeria
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
CENCOMDEV Centre for Community Development
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Partnerships are important for a variety of reasons: information/experience sharing; interaction with other stakeholders. For instance, through strengthening local ownership/capacity, improving implicit income generating, project will be self-perpetuating and self-sustaining within two years. From partnership, we have access to studies that indicate that Moringa trees are resistant to most plant pests and diseases and that those they are not resistant to can be treated with extracts from Neem tree that is abundantly available in project communities. Studies have also indicated that since virtually every part of the tree is beneficial in some way, Moringa is of great importance in areas where people have a direct dependence on trees, crops and animals for their livelihood. Networking has also linked us with sources of support for some of our initiatives. For instance, networking facilitated support we received from Embassy of Japan in Nigeria to start our cassava processing initiative. It has also enhanced our credibility that we are also into discussions with a micro-finance institution to support our efforts to expand our activities.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Action 1: Organizational Structure: participants will be organized into coops to provide a structure for efficient management; project products will be sold for income to promote financial sustainability. From this, project will set up micro-credit fund to support participants to expand activities; project will provide ongoing mentoring and marketing support. To ensure smooth expansion through active people participation, project will mobilize community about project; facilitate meetings of local leaders and other stakeholders to emphasize project importance and implementation steps; set up teams for major project tasks. Action 2: Technical capacity/ sustainability: project will recruit competent and committed personnel and adopt a ‘business approach’ to minimize waste and losses. With abundant Moringa leaves, participants will be encouraged to be raising animals for income and protein, as well as processing/selling Moringa leaves/powder to generate income. As well project will establish community-based facilities for processing Moringa leaf powder, and pilot Moringa-fed livestock training/ demonstration farm as income-generating activities to support training component of project. Action 3: Information Sharing: Over and above the steps above, I have worked on both the donor and grantee sides of the development community and recognize the reality that many donors like to identify with success and therefore, tend to support organizations with ‘track record.’ Based on very positive feedback from my efforts so far, I am confident that other donors will be interested in supporting my project. Project lessons, using participatory methods, will be documented into easy-to-read booklets that will be useful for educating other communities joining project.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
The appalling poverty rate (76%) and malnutrition rate (that UNICEF puts at six million out of national population of 144million attracted me. As earlier indicated above, a 2007 UNICEF report says Nigeria is top of world malnutrition list. Out of 146m malnourished children worldwide, Nigeria houses 6m (4%). According to FAO, over 600m people depend on cassava in Africa, Asia and Latin America. With 144m people, 70% of Nigerian food is derived from low-nutrient cassava, consumed in various forms, with sauce from spinach or other vegetables. The question agitating my mind is: if the local people depend so much on cassava, how can its nutritional value be complemented? According to Micronutrient Initiative (MI), vitamin and mineral deficiency could be controlled by adding essential micro-nutrients to most commonly eaten foods. But, as opined by Steven Laurier, Unicef Program Officer in Cote d’Ivore, “in towns, you have direct impact as people rely on improved commercially produced food. But these products do not penetrate poor rural areas. Fortification cannot be used alone. You have to complement with rural-based nutritional programs.” Also, in handling malnutrition cases, a doctor in Senegal said: “We have problems with the classical approach to treating malnourished children. This was based on industrial products: whole milk powder, vegetable oil and sugar. All these things are expensive for poor parents to buy. On the other hand, with Moringa the resource is locally available. The people themselves can produce it. We have done experiments in treating malnourished children with this plant and the results have been really spectacular.”
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
I started my development work experience with CUSO, a Canadian international development organization, in October 1986 as Program Officer. CUSO’s activity was core support to emerging Nigerian NGOs. By 1991, I became the Program Coordinator, with 11 staff, annual budget of over C$100,000 and responsible for facilitating resources and capacity building for such groups. For instance, I was Admin Officer for three years to Nigerian Environmental Study Team (NEST) responsible for setting up admin systems; servicing the Board; and developing policy guidelines. I joined the NEST Board in 1993 and still serve on its personnel committee. Today, NEST is a foremost Nigerian NGO supported by many donors. When the military junta of late Sani Abacha closed down CUSO in 1997, I set up CENCOMDEV that I currently lead as Exec Director. From onset, I planned leading CENCOMDEV for 10 years but the slow growth of democracy slowed down the organization in the first 3-4 years. CENCOMDEV, with six staff, is now a good testimony, having received support, over the years, from MacArthur Foundation, Peacefund Canada, Toyota Corporation; US and Japanese Embassies in Nigeria, among others.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Through Ashoka Network. I was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2003.
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