#panepal

Learning objective I

Learn about the foods children’s are served, what kind of nutrients they contains, if they match national and WHO recommendation in relation to their age group.

During my 5th week here, we made a 7 day food record from few children from different age group. We used the unit like cup and spoon for the food record. We analyzed the nutrient contained in them. We made the use of the USDA food database in order to calculate the nutrient contained.  Well, a lot of food we had was not listed in USDA food database and most of them didn't even had nutrient labeling which made our task quite challenging. Similar to most Nepalese diet, they consumed rice, breads, green vegetables and cereals most time during the week, meat few times a week and fish occasionally.

Learning  objective II

Learn about the food hygiene and how foods are prepared in large setting; make emphasis on using local product to prepare healthy meal.

Since, my very first week there, I had been the part of kitchen team. I observed how foods were prepared for a large number of people.  I observed the food hygiene, how clean the kitchen was and how food was stored. Well, one of the kitchen staff had great knowledge on European cuisine and had worked in Cyprus as a chef for many years. I had an opportunity to learn quite a lot of things with him. Well,the food storage system was not very great and we have frequent power cut which makes it worse.  Additionally, PA Nepal also owns it's small farm house.  Lot of things, they consume comes from their own farmhouse.  so, we emphasized on buying the grocery frequently rather than buying it at one time and storing them.

Learning objective III

Improve my knowledge about different nutrient and their availability in foods, recommendation and results of deficiency.

In the final week of my internship we made an small presentation about different food, what nutrients they contain and what are the result of the being deficient. The challenge this time was lot of children there wasn't grown enough to understand it. So, we emphasized  our presentation more on the kitchen staffs  and older children.

Learning objective IV

Improve my communication skills and learn how the children and staffs perceive the importance of physical activity and how they incorporate Physical activities in their daily life.

During my internship apart from my learning objective, I was assigned some other task like keeping the record of children's medical and school profile, helping children with their homework and taking children to visit their parents which helped me to improve my communication skill to some extent.

As, One more week passes here in Crowdy Kathmandu, I feel fortunate to be a part of wide range of activities and experience a lot of new things. Here are few things that I've been part of here at PA Nepal in past weeks.

Prison Visit

Last Weekend I had an opportunity to visit prison in Kathmandu with a team from PA Nepal which included some children whose parents are in Kathmandu prison, my supervisor and some staffs.

We rescued 2 children who were residing in prison with their parents and brought them to our children home. Children spent some time with their parents.  While, the children were busy spending time with their parent and my supervisor with paperwork for rescuing children out of prison, I spent my time talking to some prisoners about  work of prisoners assistance Nepal. Parents were very thankful to prisoner assistance Nepal and we came back promising to see them soon again.

Arjun from PA Nepal opens the lock in prison to see his father.

Time to leave!!! see you soon mom!! :'( :( 

Anthropometric Measurement of Children

This week me and a volunteer who is a nurse  from New Zealand have conducted anthropometric measurement of children at Naya Bazar Children home.  We measured Children’s height and weight.  We later calculated BMI of each children and compared it with WHO recommendation. PA Nepal had record of children's from past measurement which made it easier to observe their growth pattern. We compared their growth with the WHO growth chart for height for age and BMI for age.

We found most of the children fall under lower category of BMI range, i.e less than 18.5 which WHO classifies as being underweight.  As, I remember Benjamin saying during the classes that  WHO recommendation not always applies to Asian people because of the different genetic makeup, we concluded that it was obvious that kids were underweight according to WHO chart.

Plotting children's growth record on WHO  growth chart!!

We also observed the trend that girls entering teenage has slight decrease in their BMI which we believed was due to them starting to develop consciousness for their body image.

We observed that children seems to have low increase in their body mass while they have quite an increase in their body height. Children seem to have positive growth record when comparing it with their previous measurement while some of them had dropped in their BMI which was mainly because of  high increase in height but low increase in body mass.

Wall Painting This week we ( me ,volunteers from a school in Saudi Arabia and some children ) also  painted the wall at PA Nepal’s children library.  We painted the hand print  of all the children and staffs at  PA Nepal in the library.

Volunteers from a British school in  Saudi Arabia  working hard !!! Intercultural sensitivity comes into practice!!

Meanwhile, the wall of dining room already had these information about food and nutrition.

Next week we will be making presentation on children homes. My friend will present about oral health while I plan to talk about food and nutrition with children and staffs!!

 Stay tuned for more!!!