Hearth Program Successes

I successfully helped facilitate my first Positive Deviant/Hearth nutrition course! As I explained in an earlier post, this is the primary project I have taken over from the previous volunteer. She covered about half the villages in the sector, my job is to help cover the villages and enable to health center staff to continue the program without a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The Hearth model consists in identifying mothers in the community with healthy children (positive deviants) and training them to teach mothers with malnourished children how to care for them with local solutions. For twelve days the mothers come together (each contributing different ingredients), to cook nutritious foods and receive daily health lessons.

All in all I would say the program was a success. Personally, I learned a lot throughout the process: about the Hearth model, about malnutrition, and about my community. Perhaps more importantly, ALL the children who participated in the program gained weight! The average was 0.6 kg (1.3 lbs) in two weeks. Incredible!

There were of course several challenges and hold ups, which were frustrating, but I think provided me with great insight for improving the program. The biggest lesson I’m taking away from this course: never assume the obvious. 

Those of you who have had discussions about development know that I am not generally moved by the heartwarming human-interest stories. I like facts and figures. Still, I knew the program had been a success not when I charted the growths; rather, when a woman who had refused to join the course (she said her son was healthy and meeting everyday for two weeks was too much) came to my counterpart, Mama Fils, asking when she could join the next Hearth class. She saw the improvement in her neighbor’s children and wanted the same for her son.