FAO Namibia in conjunction with World Food Programme facilitated a ‘Nutrition, HIV/AIDS and Food Security’ training workshop with the Ministry of Health and Social Services Directorates of Primary Health Care, Family Health Division and Training)  from 2- 6 September 2019 at Rundu in Kavango East region. The workshop was developed to capacitate Health Care Workers (HCWs) on how to manage and effectively counsel clients on Nutrition, HIV/AIDS and Food Security. Participants took part in the training of trainers structured workshop, which made use of the recently published facilitator and participant manual. The manual focuses on key areas such as ‘Relationship between Nutrition and HIV’ ‘Managing HIV-Related Symptoms through Diet’, ‘How to Identify Malnutrition’, ‘Infants and Young Child Feeding (IYCF)’, ‘Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)’ and ‘Nutritional Needs of Pregnant Women’.  The participants will be able to provide practical knowledge and skills for community-based Health workers to appropriately counsel and educate patients/clients and caregivers on nutrition.

The training arises from the need for HCWs to grasp critical knowledge and skills which ensure that clients are effectively cared for, treated and managed.  During the one week workshop, participants were also introduced to tools to address the barriers of food insecurity at household level, healthy nutrition practices and practical steps on integrating nutrition and food security assessments. 

In giving feedback at the closing of the workshop, most participants remarked they were more equipped to give better nutrition counselling and would be able to train others on basic principles of Nutrition and HIV/AIDS. In terms of creating awareness and participants were also encouraged to use posters displaying the Namibian food groups and educating about locally available foods at health facilities. They also voiced a commitment to ensure that clients with malnutrition are closely monitored and that HIV clients will be counselled in order to ensure that they adhere toAntiretroviral Therapy (ART) and practice healthy nutritional habits.