Community Nutrition
The Consumer Education Project (CEP) of Milk SA aims to promote the well-being of consumers by communicating healthy eating and the role of dairy and how dairy can easily be added to daily meals for added nutrient value. One of the elements of its work focuses on community nutrition.
This community nutrition programme entails educating nutrition advisers, health promoters and community health workers in public clinics of the Department of Health through presentations and educational information sessions, which, in turn, can contribute to the upliftment of local communities.
The programme is aligned with the South African food-based dietary guidelines, which form the foundation of the training. One of the guidelines states that we should ‘have milk, maas or yoghurt every day’. The importance of including nutrient-dense foods such as milk, maas or yoghurt, as well as other dairy products (e.g. cheese), in the daily diet is discussed, taking into account the needs, socio-economic status and cultural preferences of the community they serve. The programme focuses on milk and dairy as a source of many important nutrients, the role it plays in growth and development, bone and muscle strength, and general health.
The dietitian of the CEP presents the programme to the community health workers and health promoters, who, in turn, educate patients and their community, using their respective government clinics as a base. The key communication message is to ‘have milk, maas or yoghurt every day’, supported by messages that highlight the nutritional and health benefits associated with making dairy part of a healthy diet. Each attendee receives an educational kit consisting of a training tool that covers all the applicable messages to be conveyed, A3-size posters to support the message visually and take-home pamphlets (these are available in nine of the official South African languages). To ensure successful uptake of the messages, the CEP collaborates with an organisation that specialises in communicating with the specific audience in order to translate the dietitian’s health messages into the vernacular language of the local community.
Since 2014, when the community nutrition programme started, the CEP has reached health promoters and health care workers in all nine provinces and is returning to different health districts to continue the programme and ensure its longevity.
As part of the community-based work, the CEP has developed the following educational tools:
- Clinic training tool
- Supportive visual posters
- FBDGs of South Africa information sheet
- Clinic hand-out leaflet
- Dairy as part of a healthy diet video – available in English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Setswana and Xitsonga
- Healthy nutrition for the whole family – looking at healthy nutrition throughout the different life stages
- The FBDGs of South Africa video for scholars
Online Clinic Video Resources:
Enquiries:
The Consumer Education Project of Milk SA
Contact: Maretha Vermaak or Christine Leighton
(+27) 12 991 4164
Email: info@rediscoverdairy.co.za
Website: www.rediscoverdairy.co.za
School Project
The Consumer Education Project of Milk SA’s contribution to world school milk day
An Initiative by the Consumer Education Project of Milk SA Kindly visit our Dairykids webs site for all the educational material. The Consumer Education Project (CEP) of Milk SA teamed up with the Department of Basic Education and the Milk Producers Organisation (MPO) for the month of September. On World School Milk Day, teachers at participating schools will get copies of a teacher’s guide to help prepare for a lesson on dairy and healthy eating, and activity sheets to share with their learners. The MPO supports the educational campaign by providing milk, donated by milk processors, for every learner from the participating schools on the day.
As part of CEP’s school programme, learning material is available for
learners in the Foundation Phase (Grade R to Grade 3) and Grade 5 and
Grade 6 of the Intermediate Phase.
For the Foundation Phase the theme is ‘From farm to fridge’ and the teacher’s guide covers topics such as why dairy is healthy and should be part of the daily diet, dairy products and processing, dairy farming, and dairy cows and goats. The material for the Intermediate Phase is titled ‘Guidelines for healthy eating’ and explains the South African food- based dietary guidelines (FBDGs). Readers will learn what the FBDGs are, why each one is important and how to use the FBDGs in their daily diets to ensure a healthy lifestyle.
In support of this campaign, the Consumer Education Project of Milk SA also developed, specifically for World School Milk Day, a quick guide about different types of milk and how to use it. Six brief messages are included and learners can take a copy of the information sheet to share with people at home. Hard copies can be obtained from the Consumer Education Project of Milk SA by sending an email to info@rediscoverdairy.co.za
World School Milk Day
22nd World School Milk day celebration: Choose dairy for a healthy me and a healthy environment.
September 28, marks World School Milk Day (WSMD) as designated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), which started in 2000. This global celebration is in its’ 22nd year and will be celebrated across the world. It has become an annual event on the last Wednesday of September held in many countries throughout the world. World School Milk Day aims to highlight the important role that dairy plays in the lives of school-going children.
The objective is to create awareness and inform the school communities of how dairy meets the nutritional needs of children, to give them the GO that they need throughout the day.
Kindly visit our Dairykids webs site for all the educational material
21st World School Milk Day (WSMD) 2020
This year the Consumer Education Project of Milk SA (CEP) is celebrating WSMD by sharing information with mothers and teachers about the importance of dairy in the diet of growing children.
20th World School Milk Day 2019
The 20th World School Milk Day was celebrated in SA under the theme “Dairy gives you go!” with the supportive message “Building better bodies with dairy ”. These messages highlight the importance of dairy in a balanced lifestyle. The Consumer Education Project of Milk SA (CEP), Milk Producers Organisation and various milk processors work together to educate, supply, and celebrate the wholesomeness of dairy among school-going children.
The Project developed educational tools to assist the teachers and engage learning. The educational material of the Project is developed in line with the school curriculum as set out by SA’s Department of Basic Education (DBE). Various topics relating to dairy farming, processing, and nutrition of dairy products in a healthy diet are elaborated on. The learners are engaged with the educational material and the school competitions themed around milk.
Thirteen schools, most of whom are rural schools in underprivileged areas, across SA were identified by the DBE-NSNP to celebrate the World School Milk Day and National Nutrition & Obesity Week during the months of September and October respectively. An additional seven schools contacted the Project to celebrate World School Milk Day in their own capacity. Furthermore, six processors also participated and distributed the learning material of the CEP to surrounding schools in their respective vicinity.
The celebration includes fun activities throughout the day, starting with a walkathon through their local community. The day’s proceeding is followed by cultural singing, dancing and various plays and activities. The Project took the opportunity to discuss the educational material with the teachers of the various schools. The teachers were provided with a teacher’s guide, a class poster and factsheets for each learner to take home plus an activity sheet that engaged
learners with the dairy message. Where required, an interpreter was used to better communicate to the school learners, in their mother tongue, the importance of dairy.
In total 275 number of teachers, guides and poster plus 10 260 number of factsheets were distributed during the month of September 2019.
World Milk Day
Every day is a day to enjoy milk, but on 1 June there is even more reason to share our love for milk. On 1 June every year, the world celebrates World Milk Day, instituted in 2001 by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations to recognise the importance of milk and other dairy products as a source of nutrition for people all around the world. Each year the global dairy industry promotes the health benefits of dairy and celebrates our food heroes – the producers of milk, the producers of processed milk, the manufacturers of the other dairy products and the retail, who make it possible for us all to enjoy dairy daily.
World Milk Day sets the stage for the Consumer Education Project (CEP) of Milk SA, together with the South African dairy industry, to showcase the goodness of milk and other dairy products. For this year’s event, the CEP will create awareness about the health benefits of dairy on various platforms – from print to online sources to social media – under the RediscoverDairy umbrella.