The management of Nestlé plc, the largest Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company in the world, organised another edition of Nutrition Media workshop at it training centre at Agbara Factory, attended by over 35 Media people from the Health desk of various newspapers.
L-R: Mrs. Owoniyi, Executive Manager, Stakeholder Relations, Mrs. Peggy Diby, Head Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, CWAR, Dr. Barthlomew Brai, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Joseph Walid Hbaika, Nestle Factory Manager, Agbara, Chukwuma Muanya, Guardian Newspaper, Mrs. Emma-Nwachukwu, NNIA, Anglophone CWAR.
The nutrition media workshop theme, “Good Nutrition: A Way of Life” was held on October19, 2016, with aimed at reinforcing nutritional knowledge starting from media profession in order to improve their reporting in this area.
Nutrition is a serious matter in every stage of life; however, good nutrition from the onset is very critical. Life begins from conception and the first 2 years of life have been found to be a critical window of opportunity when it comes to nutrition. As this has significant impact on a child’s ability to grow and learn which in turn can also shape a society’s long-term health, stability and prosperity.
L-R:Mrs. Peggy Diby, Head Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, CWAR (sitting), while Dr. Barthlomew Brai, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria (standing)
During the workshop Dr Bartholomew Brai, the President-elect of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria stressed on the need for right nutrition within 1000days. He presented an overview of the nutritional challenges in Nigeria, how private and public sectors, including society along with media, have to work together to address these issues that may leads to change the future positively.
Also Chukwuma Muanya, Assistant Editor of The Guardian Newspapers presented a paper on “Nutrition reporting: The critical role of media people”. Indeed, Muanya throw more light and educate the participants on the nutrition landscape, raise awareness on potential risks and the importance of changing behaviour. He also shared examples of good practices in other countries. All media present at the event expressed the need for building a strong network of health reporters in Nigeria.
This network of nutrition reporters will encourages and enable easy ways of reporting nutrition natters to the general public, thereby creates more awareness on the issues.
L-R: Cross section of some journalists are seeing view data on Computer during their Nestle Factory visit.
Nestlé seized this opportunity to present to the media the actions implemented to contribute to consumers nutrition, health and wellness such as cooking classes for kids, nutrition education programmes for women and offering tastier and healthier products which are fortified with micronutrients. In Nigeria, Nestlé sells daily over 100 million Maggi cubes fortified in iron reaching over 18 million households.
It was disclosed that Nestlé Healthy Kids Programme has reached over 62,000 pupils in 112 schools across 4 Nigerian states and through the Nestlé Nutrition Institute Africa, Health Care professionals have been empowered with nutrition information through various nutrition programmes organized by the institute.
