Monrovia – The World Food Program (WFP) says the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires moving beyond saving lives to changing lives, focusing first on the people in greatest needs.
Report by Gerald C. Koinyeneh, [email protected]
Addressing a group of Liberian journalists at a two-day training in food and nutrition security reporting on Tuesday recently in Monrovia, the WFP Liberia Country Director, Dr. Bienvenu Djossa said that the agency envisions “everyone, everywhere has access to nutritious food to not only survive but thrive”.
“We will explicitly align our activities around the 17 goals but will focus mainly on two of those goals: SDG 2, supporting countries and responding to the hunger needs of the most vulnerable, working and helping to achieve zero hunger; and SDG 17, partnering to support implementation of the SDGs,” he said.
The participating journalists, drawn mainly from the print, electronic and web-based media outlets, were drilled through the steps in reporting and highlighting food and nutrition security.
The activities and interventions focused on resilience and livelihoods creations, school meals management, nutrition interventions, and logistics’ operations within the framework of WFP’s global communications modules and approaches.
George Fominyen, WFP Regional Communications Officer for West and Central Africa serving as lead facilitator of the communications-driven exercise, encouraged journalists to scale up, improve and highlight food security, nutrition and agriculture related activities.
The training was climaxed with a field trip by journalist and WFP’s staff to the Sean Devereux Children’s Education and Agriculture Program’s lowland rice and vegetable farms in Levumah and Folley Towns in Bomi County.
Speaking to reporters on the farms, the farmers explained that through the support of WFP and partners, they are benefiting from their agriculture produce.
“WFP and partners trained us through Sean Devereux on how to plant seed and from there I started planting my cucumber. After that the first season, I planted three tomato cups of cumber seeds and I harvested and sell about LD$55,000.00 and this gone season, I planted four tomato cups and got LD$35,000.00,” explains Boakai Johnson.
Johnson said he planted four cups of tomatoes and was “able to get more than LD$56,000.00,” which helped begin the construction of his home.
“I am encouraging the youth that instead of hanging around doing nothing to come right back to the soil,” said Johnson.
Jartu Dukuly, a single mother with seven children, thanked WFP for the support.
“But it is from the money I get from the sale of our vegetables that I can send my children to school and feed them. We don’t want to spoil the government’s name because they alone can’t do all,” she said.
“We are encouraging everyone to come join us; even those living in the cities, who are not doing anything to come join us here in Bomi. Not everyone can live in the city.”
Meanwhile, at the end of the training, the participants established the Food Security and Nutrition Reporter Association of Liberia (FOSENRAL) for scaling up, improving and highlighting food security, nutrition and agriculture-related activities in the media while supporting one another’s professional enhancement.