Mother, child nutrition scheme unveiled

Internship programme aims at solving province’s health issues

QUETTA: The Balochistan Nutrition Programme for Mothers and Children (BNPMC) was launched on Wednesday in Quetta.

The internship programme is committed to solving the issues of the people of Balochistan. Several studies and reports have found that Balochistan has the lowest levels of human development in the country.

“Nutrition programme has taken the lead role in attaining sustainable development, having numerous long term development priorities like equipping the future of this province to deal with any kind of vulnerable situation and building resilient communities through mass mobilisation,” health department officials said.

They said that the province lags behind the rest of the country in economic growth, labour productivity, health, education and other socioeconomic indicators.



They contended that the province also suffers from the widest gender gaps in education and health in the country. Social indicators depict that the state of human resource development in the province is poor.

In addition to the poor social and economic indicators, the province is also exposed to a number of natural hazards.

The nutrition programme for mothers and children have felt that there is a widespread gap in terms of knowledge base, skills training, long-term planning, emergency preparedness and policy development to respond to any kind of disaster where the population is exposed to endemic, epidemic along with food insecurity and starvation.

BNPMC is committed to training and motivating the young commencers who are precious asset to the country’s development.

While speaking on the occasion Health Minister Mir Abdul Majid Abro said, "Food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition are the key challenges in the remote areas of Balochistan. Trained and skilled human resource will help create a sustainable education programme.”

He added, “The programme will help the professional development of students. It will give them an experience to learn of their own strengths and weaknesses.”

The minister said that the programme is designed in a way so that it can be carried out from home as well.