On April 4th, 2019 staffs of Hilina Enriched Foods PLC & Nutriset has visited Assayita UNHCR refugee camp located in Afar region.
The purpose of the visit is to see the vulnerable group of malnourished children’s who are using RUF’s products and spot how this products are changing lives and also what needs to be improved from the perspectives of the government, donors, procurement sections, field officers and most importantly from the consumer or end users.
Mrs. Adeline Lescanne and Mrs. Hilina Belete, the General Manager of Nutriset and Hilina Foods has expressed their gratitude to UNHCR for their generosity in helping over 29,000 Afar & Eritrean refugees. The Assayita camp is administrated by Ethiopian Refugee Authority (ARRA) and by the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.
Within the camp there are around 1,663 malnourished children’s who are being served with RUTF/RUSF in addition with CSB++ nutritional supplementary foods and also who are getting use of the General Food Distribution Program that is being provided per month.
The Assayita camp of UNHCR has different supplementary feeding programs. The first one is Targeted Supplementary Program (TSFP) which is serving around 88 refugees with SAM/MAM and from this 36 of them are children’s from 6 – 59 months, 23 of them are Pregnant & Lactating Woman (PLW) and the remaining 11 are from the Stabilization Center (SC). The second program is Outpatient Therapeutic Program (OTP) which is serving around 70 refugees with SAM/MAM. The third one is Blanket Supplementary Feeding Program (BSFP) which is serving around 2,018 refugees with SAM/MAM and from this 467 of them are children’s from 6 – 23 months, 1,038 of them are children’s from 24 – 59 months, 218 of them are from the section considered as “Others”, 147 of them are Pregnant woman while the rest 148 of them are Lactating Woman.
Up on the visit, the staffs of Hilina Foods & Nutriset visited the Admission Room first where RUTF, RUSF, F100, F75, CSB++ & other supplementary products are being distributed and then the Education Room where nutritional trainings on IOSF (Introduction of Solid Food) & Exclusive Breast Feeding up to 6 months is being provided and thirdly they have visited the WFP tent warehouse. At last, focal discussion has been held with the woman refugees who has children’s with SAM/MAM. The discussions were mainly on how they perceive RUTF/RUSF mainly the test, texture of the product, how they rate the effectiveness of the product from there side, and also what kind of suggestions they have to improve the products.
At the end, staffs of Hilina Foods and Nutriset thank UNICEF and UNHCR for organizing such a fruitful visit and encourages their remarkable humanitarian response efforts. “As a producer of ready to use therapeutic products, we have never been proud than to see ourselves saving lives and be part of the tremendous benevolent support we are providing along with the humanitarian agencies for those who are in need. What we have witnessed in the UNHCR Assayita Camp has motivated us to put more effort on the nutritional solutions and continuously do more in saving lives” said the visitors.
