To support National efforts in addressing the challenge of malnutrition, CS-SUNN implemented the 2021 Youth Leadership Program under the SUN Movement Civil Society Network from May- July 2021. The project sought to create awareness on nutrition among young people using various social media platforms. It placed on the spotlight sustainable nutrition pathways for young people, encompassing strategic elements around health, food/nutrition security and safety, agriculture, climate change, gender, micro-nutrient and child feeding. The project also sought to contribute to increasing nutrition perception as a developmental necessity for social protection, as well as growth and stability in Nigeria by leveraging on available Social Media platforms.
CS-SUNN’s engagement and collaborations with youth groups, youth-related government Ministries, Department and Agencies, social media influencers and On-Air Personalities across some radio stations and editors of some newspaper organizations enabled the alliance to:
1) Lead momentum towards improved public awareness on nutrition issues and drive actionable commitments and contributions of young people for sustained nutrition in Nigeria. CS-SUNN’s Survey on the impact of the program with 12 respondents had 33.3% of the respondents saying they were uninformed about youth and nutrition related matters before the program while 58.3% strongly agreed that CS-SUNN campaigns and activities on youth and nutrition issues increased their knowledge on the issue at the end of the program.
2) Achieve wide reach and engagements on the social media space via campaigns. Metrics from twitter and Facebook campaigns showed excellent and impactful engagement rates. Key performance indicators used to measure campaigns showed CS-SUNN made a total of 2000. 8K (233,893) impressions via the twitter campaigns (prior to the ban of twitter) and recorded an engagement rate of 4K (4449). The Facebook campaign reached 2025 people with an engagement rate of 699.
3) Generate six key commitments from organizations towards sustained nutrition for youths in Nigeria. The Commitments were made by CS-SUNN, Save the Children, Federal Ministry of Education, and Community Action for Food Security at the end of a webinar with theme “Youths 4 Sustainable Nutrition in Nigeria. The commitments include:
CS-SUNN
- “CS-SUNN is committing to support and partner with the Federal Ministry of Education (FMoE) to institutionalize food and nutrition clubs in primary and secondary schools.
- We are also willing to work with FMoE to establish nutrition CDS at NYSC in the next NYSC batch. We will look at when the next batch is starting and then spark up conversations on that.
- We will also engage our state chapters to Sustain conversations around youth involvement”, said CS-SUNN Chairman, Mr. Ekene Ifedilichukwu Innocent”.
SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL
“We will continue engaging the youth to find out what nutrition issues are affecting them and empower them to lend their voices by inviting them to policy dialogues and providing them with platforms where they can speak up and influence decisions”, said Karina Lopez, Head of Health and Nutrition, Save the Children International.
COMMUNITY ACTION FOR FOOD SECURITY
“We have been engaging secondary school students to teach them about nutrition and have established 2 gardens from that. We will continue to do this and also engage policy makers to ensure that young people are carried along in decision making processes” said Azeez Salawu, Managing Director, Community Action for Food Security.
FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
“The Federal Ministry of Education is committed to the establishment and strengthening of the already established food and nutrition clubs in schools at all levels and also to collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and CS-SUNN to incorporate nutrition into National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Community Development Service (CDS) Group activities”, said Mrs. Umoh Margaret, AD (Food and Nutrition) Technology and Science, Education Department, Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja.
CS-SUNN is working to follow up with the commitments made and incorporate required engagements into ongoing projects to ensure sustainability of the Youth Leadership Program gains.
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