UNICEF focusing on malnutrition among children

Belize was the fifth country in the world to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. Protecting the rights of children and meeting the goals of the convention have been top on the agenda for the United Nation’s Children’s Fund in Belize. UNICEF is now in phase three of a five year plan to achieve certain goals by 2011. On Tuesday, the organization, along with related N.G.O.s and government representatives, met in Belmopan to sign the 2009 Annual Work Plan. Country Representative for UNICEF in Belize, Rana Flowers calls this year’s two point six million dollar plan an ambitious one. News Five’s Delahnie Bain sat down with Flowers today to get a break down of the plan and has this report.

Delahnie Bain Reporting
The 2009 Annual Work Plan will focus on protecting children and helping in their development. This cycle of the plan will give priority to chronic malnutrition and other challenges facing the youths.

Rana Flowers, Country Representative, UNICEF
“So we want to look at specifically what are the micronutrients, what are the children not getting in their diet, and then how can we support families to improve their diets and to improve the nutrition levels of their children but also of the women because if a pregnant woman is suffering from chronic malnutrition then you’ll find that the babies are born with less resilience and often underweight. It looks at early childhood education, which is something that we feel is very important. All the evidence tells us that if you invest in that first period, then you don’t see the school drop-out, you don’t see the balance, you don’t see other problems that would manifest themselves when the children reach adolescence.”

“Quality education; big issue. We really want to support the government in terms of turning around the kind of indicators that we’re seeing in education. How do we do that? We’re gonna do it in partnership with the Ministry of Education to introduce child friendly schools. And then the program looks at the whole community also as a safe space. So it really is taking the picture of the community, the school and then the family. So we’re trying to address those three levels to try and reach the children at the different milestones, at the different transition moments with the kinds of support that they need.”

Another pressing issue in Belize is the HIV rate, a problem that is mostly linked to adults. But when an expecting mother is infected, the child is also at risk.

Rana Flowers
“Not taking our eye off HIV, the need to look at mother to child transmission and make sure women know they must go and get care in that first trimester so that we can ensure that they have the iron and the nutrients that they need to produce the healthiest babies possible. And also looking at prevention of HIV among young people. Then the final element of the HIV effort is very much looking at the care and protection of children who are already living with families or living themselves with HIV.

While the plan has produced sound results in previous years, Flowers says they are now taking a different approach for a better outcome.

Rana Flowers
“What is missing is that integration so within UNICEF we’re saying let’s not do that silo approach anymore, let’s really go to a way of working with the government and working with the non-government organizations that forces us all to integrate better because if you don’t integrate well then you’re missing some of the elements that the children need and the families need but you’re also missing some of the children.”

With all those plans in place, we asked Flowers to address concerns that UNICEF may be withdrawing its services from Belize. She says that after much debate, it was decided that not only will UNICEF remain in Belize, its budget has increased. Delahnie Bain for News Five.

And in respect with the Millennium Development Goals signed in the year 2000, Flowers says we’re on track… in some areas.
UNICEF works in collaboration with local and municipal government bodies, Statistical Institute of Belize, Hand in Hand Ministries, POWA, Red Cross, Y.E.S., N.C.F.C., National Commission for Women, and the National AIDS Commission.