In Somalia, a community health worker goes door to door to catch child malnutrition early

Every morning from 8 o'clock, community health worker Nafiso Ibrahim Ali walks from home to home in Jowhar, Somalia, screening children for malnutrition and connecting those who need it with treatment, UNICEF Somalia reported on 10 October.

Seven years of work in her own neighbourhood

Nafiso, 26, was born and raised in Jowhar's Horseed neighbourhood and has worked in the community for seven years. A mother of three herself, she spends her days from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. visiting families: measuring children, talking with caregivers, sharing information and referring children to nutrition services.

One of those families is Maryan Calaso Geedi's. Maryan, 23 and a mother of three, was displaced from Ceel Cad by drought. Her husband earns a living moving goods with a handcart, and she sells grass she collects. When her youngest child was found to have severe acute malnutrition, the child was referred to the health centre and enrolled in treatment with ready-to-use therapeutic food.

Reaching families who face barriers to care

For displaced and vulnerable families, getting to a clinic can be hard, and malnutrition caught early is easier to treat before it becomes severe. Community health workers screen, counsel, refer and follow up in people's own homes, which UNICEF says helps reach families who might otherwise be missed.

The need is large. UN agencies have warned of a worsening hunger and malnutrition crisis in Somalia, with projected floods and funding shortfalls threatening vulnerable families. The work in Jowhar is supported by the European Union's humanitarian aid department, ECHO.

Early detection saves lives

UNICEF's story is a single example rather than a programme evaluation. The same approach of finding children early and treating them close to home helped two-year-old Margaretha recover from severe malnutrition in Indonesia.