In 2013, the EVERY ONE Campaign really increased its reach and impact in Pakistan. We saw many
successes such as the introduction of laws on breastfeeding, meaning that
mothers are encouraged to exclusively breastfeed their children for first six
months of child life. The laws prohibits the promotion of any milk produced as
partial or total replacement for mother’s milk or represented as a complement
to mother’s milk to meet the growing nutritional needs of an infant.
Using TV talk shows, radio programmes
and street theatre, we engaged the public on issues such as malnutrition, and
the importance of health workers and immunisation. We produced a documentary on nutrition, which was shown
on 2 national and 18 cable channels across Pakistan. We also hosted television talk shows with speakers
from the federal and provincial governments, policy makers, experts including GAVI, campaign ambassadors and civil society organizations. The Ministers of Health from Balochistan and KP also participated in these talk shows, where
we discussed malnutrition, immunization
and health workers and how these issues impact women and children. Through TV
and radio commercials, a radio drama and short stories, we reached 11 million
people with our messages.
In all four provinces, we worked with local actors who performed street
theatre, informing the public about malnutrition, importance of health workers
and immunization. Total 28,399 people including 16,280 male and 12,119 females
were reached through street theatre performances.
Early in the year we launched the ‘Super food for babies’ report in a consultation where government, civil
society and parliamentarians were present.
The launch was an opportunity to
increase the advocacy around breastfeeding in Pakistan. At the event, Dr Sania Nishtar, the President and Founder of Heart file said that breast milk is not only free
but also provides the best protection for infants to fight common diseases and
prevent stunting. She committed to take forward the findings of the Save the
Children’s Breastfeeding Report and stressed on the need for implementing the breastfeeding
legislation in line with the International Code for Breastfeeding Violations Letters
were sent to the Chief Ministers in all four provinces and the Minister for
Health at the federal level, for effective steps for the implementation of the
breastfeeding laws. The research report “Breastfeeding: A roadmap
to promotion and protection” and a documentary on breastfeeding were launched in a
National Conference on Breastfeeding in Islamabad with representation from all
the four provinces from civil society, Government, UN agencies and media. Maiza Hameed Gujjar MNA (Member National
Assembly), assured Save the Children she would play her role for the implementation of Breastfeeding laws at the national and
Punjab level. Mr. Shaukat Yousafzai, Minister for Health
Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) announced that the Provincial Government
is soon going to enact the KP Protection of Breastfeeding and Child Nutrition
Bill. Similarly Mr. Bugti Head of Nutrition Cell Government of Balochistan said
that the Balochistan Protection and Promotion of Breastfeeding Bill will be
placed before the Provincial Assembly for enactment in its coming session. The
immediate result was notification of the Infant Feeding Board at the Federal level
within a week.
Another
major step towards highlighting the situation of under nutrition in Pakistan was the launch of the Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition, on 21st August 2013. Dr Zulfiqar Ali Bhutta was one of the key note speakers. The
launch was covered by some of the leading newspapers of the country covered,
while Express Tribune also did an editorial the very next
day.
Throughout the year we have been
regularly collaborating with the Development Partners for Nutrition (DPN), including
national consultation on “The Role of Private Sector in Addressing
Malnutrition in Pakistan” and five media roundtable discussions to
engage media in highlighting the issue of
malnutrition. This resulted in several contributions by media persons in
leading English and Urdu newspapers. We also organized
Multi-stakeholders’ workshops in Lahore & Quetta to accelerate the implementation of the
UN Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) Strategy in Pakistan. To gather more support
around the issue of malnutrition a number of sessions were organized at Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta with human rights
organizations. Our aim was to
increase understanding and knowledge of nutrition which will ultimately lead to
improved nutrition advocacy initiatives by civil society organizations.
During the
measles outbreak in Sindh and Punjab, we worked together with Child
Rights Movement, to write letters to the provincial chief ministers and advocate for
strengthening routine immunization. Around the same time, the EVERY ONE Campaign was made part of
the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial communication Technical Committee on
Immunization. We also supported the midterm and annual review of the Expanded
Program for Immunization (EPI) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which resulted in the
inclusion of training for Lady Health Workers in the EPI manual.
Our engagements
with the Technical Advisory Group continued throughout the year, where
we regularly reviewed the mother and child health situation in each province. For the
first time in Pakistan, the EVERY ONE Campaign engaged the Parliamentarians from
both the ruling and opposition parties on the country’s achievement of MDG 4
and related issues of under
nutrition in Pakistan, strengthening routine immunization and
increasing the number of Lady Health Workers and Community Midwives.
The EVERY ONE
Campaign also worked with 1,564 children from 12 children’s clubs at
Muzaffargarh in Punjab and 62 children clubs of Sanghar in Sindh and educated them
on the importance of immunization, nutrition and lady health workers. As part
of engaging children in the campaign, we held a press
conference with the Children group on Universal Children’s Day. During the press
conference, children highlight the health and education related issues. The
call for attention was that it is due time that the government took a proactive
lead to change the lives of these children. The press conference got coverage
by one of the leading English newspaper along with some Urdu papers.
Last
year we focused on educating journalists around health reporting. We
collaborated with MIISHAL (Media Agency) to identify 20 potential journalists from across Pakistan to train
them on the situation of under nutrition among children and women in the
country, its link with the under 5 mortality and the role of media. The
training was followed by field
visits to the various health facilities in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. This training resulted in
significantly more media coverage on malnutrition. To
appreciate the efforts of the journalists, the EVERY ONE Campaign collaborated
with Agahi
Awards to award the best journalists in the health category.
The EVERYONE Campaign will continue to build on the momentum created in
2013 and strive for achieving results in 2014. We’ve begun 2014 with provincial
consultation on Every Newborn Action Plan consultations in collaboration with
UNICEF. We are going to launch “Ending Newborn Deaths” report in Islamabad
involving the federal and provincial governments, civil society and media.
We’ll hold Health Workers Awards with a focus on Lady Health Workers and
Community Midwives and will launch our documentary on health workers during the
week involving high level provincial government officials with a focus on
increase in the number of LHWs and CMWs. The EVERYONE Campaign is in the final
stages of producing a documentary on immunization which will be launched during
the immunization week. We are also working on a research together with the
Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) about the causes of poor immunization
in low performing districts of Punjab. Findings of the research will be used
during the immunization week and later for advocacy to strengthen routine
immunization. Together with DPN we are working to establish the SUN CSOs
network. We’ll continue with our advocacy for provincial inter sectoral
strategies and budgetary allocation for nutrition and continue to follow up on
the implementation of the breastfeeding code. The State of the World’s Mothers
report will be launched, breastfeeding week will be celebrated and a national
research about newborns will be conducted and launched during the year. We’ll
continue to engage with Private Sector at provincial level. We’ll continue to
engage with key stakeholders including children, parliamentarians, DPN, civil
society, media and government.
http://everyone.savethechildren.net/articles/every-one-pakistan-glance-2013
