PSA/MOH in partnership with UNICEF from August 2017 to July 2018 implemented Community based IYCF intervention in Bossaso – Puntland, the project’s goal was to protect, promote and support breastfeeding In Bossaso city with target population of 448,009 IDPs and host communities at community level, the timeframe for the project was twelve (12) months.
In line with the project, PSA conducted a 1-day end-year review meeting which was attended by 25 participants, namely MOH technical team, local authority, IDP & Host committees, CBW, nurses, Program Staff, the meeting was used to review achievements based on indicators, deliberated on challenges and way forward.
As one of the key responsibilities of a project management team was to collect information of the status of the project tasks from all stakeholders and review them against the project on what was planned against what was achieved at the end of the project and identify areas of improvement for future projects.
The session was also an opportunity to deliberate on how to sustain the ongoing activities even after the projects closure.
Objectives:
- Conduct review on progress against key planned activities and identify key challenges/constraints
- Discussion /comments from participants
- Agree action points and Way forward
- To review progress/achievements against C-IYCF (outputs)
- Get comments and recommendations from participants
- Develop action points / Way forwards
The training commenced at 09:00 AM by a word of prayer and a sermon from Quran note from Sheikh.
It was followed by opening remarks from Yusuf – local government director for planning, he said that as the ministry they will always give full support to such programmes as IYCF because they play a pivotal role in bringing up a healthy and prosperous nation and population.
The next was to the podium was MOWDAFA representative, Mrs. Shamis, she said the project was so important to MOWDAFA as a ministry, because it supported mothers and their children, which is a core objective of the ministry affairs, she also said during the implementation period, they worked closely with PSA in addressing and solving all the challenges that tried to hinder the project and they are proud to have played a noble role. She also said on various occasions she visited the sites of the project and had interviews with the beneficiaries and she can confirm the project reached its intended objectives.
She was followed by Mrs. Johor from Ministry of Health (MOH) who officially opened the meeting, she thanked the participants for attending such an important review meeting organized by MOH, PSA and UNICEF, she asked the participants to air their views on the incumbent challenges and how to sustain the activities, even without the funding.
The next to address the participants was Mr. Abdihakim Ahmed – PSA’s programmes coordinator, he made presentation on IYCF project implementation as a general, he highlighted the project’s background, interventions, outputs, indicators, lessons learnt, success stories, challenges, way forward –recommendations.
He also showed the participants a short documentary film of the project.
The next session was discussion time where all the participants, aired their views and perspectives on project’s successes and areas that needs improvement.
One of the participants highlighted on how the project helped her personally as an individual and to the community as general.
Another beneficiary who is also a community leader quipped that, 2018 has been a successful year in their village, this is the year, they had minimal child mortality compared to other years and they attribute it to the IYCF project.
The meeting ended at 12:10 PM with closing remarks from various participants followed by the concluding remarks of Mr. Abdihakim, PSA’s Program Coordinator. He thanked UNICEF and all the participants for their successful completion of the meeting and reiterated PSA’s tried its best to ensure the projects was implemented as planned and it achieved the desired goals and objectives as envisaged and planned.