Being the visible change in his Malawian community
Breaking stereotypes, Tael proudly stands as a male role model for nutrition in his community.
Tael Vumu proudly shares these responsibilities with his wife and their household has become a role model for others. ©FAO/Towela Munthali
On the outskirts of Mzuzu city in Malawi, in the small village of Chikoya, lives Tael Vumu. His day job is farming, but on the side, he’s a local food hero, tirelessly volunteering to improve his household’s nutrition and boost the health of his entire community.
He does so through the European Union-funded Afikepo nutrition-sensitive agriculture project, implemented by FAO, UNICEF and the Government of Malawi. Afikepo means ‘Let them [the children] develop to their full potential’ in Malawi’s Chichewa language, and it is this that the nutrition programme seeks to do. It is designed to improve and diversify diets for women of childbearing age, adolescent girls, infants and young children in Malawi.
The FAO-UNICEF project works through care groups, which are made up of volunteer, community leaders, called cluster leaders, who attend meetings, learn about nutrition and then share that knowledge with other households in their communities.
It’s not ‘women’s work’
Having a child under five years old, Tael was initially supported by the project, but swiftly took up a leadership role, becoming a cluster leader and member of Titemwane care group and supporting different 12 households.
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