Mopani’s children growing great with less stunting

This is according to the Grow Great Campaign (GGC) which seeks to galvanise South Africa towards achieving zero stunting by 2030. The executive director of GGC, Dr. Edzani Mphaphuli said that although any percentage of stunting is still a problem, reaching 13% is considered an achievement, which means 1 in 10 children under 5 suffer from stunting. “We surveyed seven districts regarding stunting, and Mopani was important to us because it is the first district where we implemented the GGC in 2018, this is where everything started.

“No level of stunting is a good level, but having low percentages is great progress for us, it is a significant drop.” She said they will be able to see in 2026 whether Mopani is on the right track to getting to zero. Stunting occurs when a child does not have sufficient nutrition to grow and develop. This can be caused by a poor diet alone, but is often exacerbated by disease and poor health,” Mphaphuli explained. She added that children are stunted due to the combined effects of poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.

“The complementary feeding period, generally corresponding to ages 6–24 months represents an important period of sensitivity to stunting with lifelong, possibly irrevocable consequences. Stunted children have shorter bodies than their peers. Weight does not increase, even tends to decrease and stunted children experience developmental delays according to their age. Children become more susceptible to various infectious diseases and can have intellectual impairment later in life,” says Mphaphuli.

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“Our mission is to use data to mobilise policymakers, stories to inspire the public, communities of practice to support community health workers, and mom and baby classes to support parents, the GGC seeks to galvanise South Africa towards a future where no child is unjustly denied the opportunity to reach their full potential. Stunting is a condition that arises from prolonged undernutrition, and it affects physical and brain development. It’s defined as shortness in height for a child’s age and it can only be diagnosed by comparing the child’s measurements to standardised growth charts,” she added.

The social franchise model called Flourish provides access to mom and baby classes that support, celebrate, and empower pregnant and new mothers through the critical first 1000 days of a child’s life. It is a GGC programme. Kgosikgadi Johanna Raphahlelo from Raphahlelo said that she is very pleased with how the campaign is growing. “It started as just a vision, and that vision grew into a mission. It is a mission for GGC to make sure that they reach zero in stunting by 2030, and they will do all they can to make sure that it happens.

I was part of it as well but resigned after my husband passed away. “We would visit clinics and households and check relationships between mothers and their newborns. We visited pregnant women to make sure that the baby was being well fed in the womb.”