DILI, 18 august 2023 (TATOLI) – One of the Timorese universities, namely ‘Universidade da Paz’ (UNPAZ), introduced nutritious local food to the rural communities in Timor-Leste to support child nutrition across the country.
“UNPAZ, through the finalist students of nutrition, currently introduces and promotes nutritious local food to rural communities through the activities of cooking,” Dean of the Faculty of Public Health and Medicine of UNPAZ, Cipriano do Rosário Pacheco, said to Tatoli at his office, Surik-Mas, Dili, today.
Pacheco explained that the program is aimed at introducing and promoting local food to support the nutrition program in reducing stunting in Timor-Leste.
“We have many nutritious foods such as local rice, potatoes, cassava, corn, and other local foods that have high nutrition but are not consumed well by the communities because of a lack of knowledge about how to cook them”.
Therefore, according to him,” the presence of the nutrition finalist students is to introduce and promote how to cook the local nutritious foods to the communities, especially the women and mothers in rural areas, to support child nutrition in Timor-Leste.”
So far, this program has been implemented by the 170-finalist student from the faculty of public health and medicine, Department of Nutrition, since 2022. Over 2,000 women and mothers have benefited from the cooking of nutritious local food in Timor – Leste.
“Hopefully, introducing and promoting nutritious local food will help the Ministry of Health’s program to reduce malnutrition and the rate of stunting in Timor-Leste,” the academic said.
“Based on the report of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health, it is reported that Timor – Leste has 47.1% stunting. We hope that introducing and promoting local food will help the Ministry of Health and the relevant institutions improve the nutrition of children and reduce the average rate of stunting in Timor – Leste,” he concluded.
Journalist: Camilio de Sousa
Editor: Rafael Ximenes de A. Belo
