Wali Mohammad Breaking the cycle of malnutrition in AAIWO

Since Sediqa husband death in January, 2026, she and her family have suffered. She says, to feed the children, it's really a very big difficulty, we have a lot of suffering, I have no support. I don't have uncles or a father anywhere else; my father and mother are all dead, I'm all alone.
Soon after her husband’s death, two of her children, Wali Mohammad age 7 months, and Rahmatullah, age three years fell ill. They were diarrhea and had fevers. She took them to the health center where they were screened by nutrition counselor, trained health staff and diagnosed with OPD SAM, he weighed only4.2 kg, had a MUAC of 10.2cm and a height of 65cm. The OPD SAM services provider(midwife) prescribed one week’s ration of RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic food) purchased by the UNICEF and provide by the AAIWO, SAFE project, For the past five weeks, Wali Mohammad has been returning weekly for screening and follow up, and another week’s ration of RUTF. She says the children are now nearing the end of their treatment, and she has seen a change while the Sadiqa applied the feeding and care practices, she had learned during the counseling session. After less than two months (57 days) of treatment, his weight increased to 7.3 kg, his MUAC improved to 12.9 cm and his height reached 67.4 cm. Having successfully recovered, he was discharged from the program on 11 July 2026.
Midwife of gurgan SHC, who is an OPD SAM provider at Gurgan sub-Health Center in Dand, Kandahar province, has seen hundreds of children in his community suffering from malnutrition. Some repeatedly come in to receive treatments of OPD SAM only to relapse when the treatment has finished. But he believes that change is possible. He says: All you need to do is raise awareness, repeat. This is what we are doing, raising the community awareness so the community can take care because the RUTF won't last forever. The Plumpy will end. The community must know that they can have gardens at home. People should know that even in those RUTF it is our own food that they bring us in RUTF. Because if we check in RUTF, there are peanuts, there is maize, there are beans, It's the food that we produce