By Supreetha Gubbala
Aspire, a new local NGO has started a family health and nutrition education program aimed at assisting illiterate and semi-illiterate women in addressing their basic family constraints, Igihe.com has established.
In an event held on Sunday at their headquarters in Kigali, Aspire in partnership with Medical Students’ Association of Rwanda (MEDSAR) instilled what was termed: “Body Mass Index” to women and a number of their spouses on health nutrition for their families.
The organizations Founding Director, Ms. Peace Ruzage revealed that the Aspire program was founded in 2007 after she had seen an idle and frustrated group of women in her neighborhood.
“It really started as community outreach, because the women neighbours would gather on my veranda and I would hear them arguing in desperation about their family problems and that’s when I started interacting with them”. She added that the number grew and she decided it was high time they could do something to overcome their constraints.
After much discussion with her neighbors Ruzage says she discovered that the women were bored and marginalized from society due to lack of education and basic training to help them shape their destiny.
“Most of the women were illiterate, unskilled widows and single mothers with many children” she passionately stressed explaining they started teaching them simple vocational skills like reading and writing.
Later in 2009 she realized the need to do something more formalized by getting partners and register the NGO with government and international partners assistance in helping the vulnerable households.
Ruzage pointed out that every year Aspire adopts 100 women in Kigali into its twelve month training program, which currently has three hundred graduates and 175 currently still enrolled in the basic education focusing family health nutrition.
She emphasized that the organization strongly makes sure that women passon these skills to their children and communities. She further stressed that without the men also taking part, there exist barriers to any sustainable changes.
“Before they graduate we evaluate their progress and when we are doing the evaluations the women tell us: “you talk to us, but you are only talking to only one side. Men are still decision-makers in households be it family planning, be it nutrition because if it is the man who is giving money for food, they must also decide what to eat.” She clarified adding: “This is the first time we are talking to men as an organization.
“ We hope to continue the program at least for two Sunday’s a month.”
More often, health organizations focus on educating the women in households as they are seen traditionally as caregivers. However, says Aspire and MEDSAR have partnered up to successfully create a dramatically different approach to including men in addressing household challenges faced.
Jean Baptiste Habiyambere, the President of MEDSAR and a fourth year medical student told Igihe that it is part of their mission to serve the Rwandan people.
“I was called by the coordinator and we met and discussed how we can be involved in their health related issues.
“That is how we planned for these activities where we can screen for some diseases that affect spouses, teach them about various health issues like family planning, reproductive health, and infectious diseases.” He observed adding that on Sunday they were screening for their Body Mass Index, where the results can indicate their cardiovascular health and risk for developing diabetes.
“But the main purpose today is to get the men here and teach them about nutrition for their families and teaching women while the men remain uneducated is useless.”
The event attracted dozens of men who commented after their nutrition lesson that they able to know much better what their wives had been talking about and the importance of diet to their own health.
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