On November 25, staff of Nutrition Education and Promotion Project and Food and Nutrition Security Project attended the 7th National Nutrition Day which was held in Kampong Cham Province.

This event was organized by the Council of Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD). This year, the chosen theme was "Strengthening Food Systems for Healthy Diets". With this theme, the government and representatives of aid agencies emphasized the importance of involving various sectors such as agriculture, education, health, hygiene, and social security in dealing with the challenges related to food security and nutrition. It came from the necessity of securing food and improving the environments for food production, processing, distribution and consumption in Cambodia, for healthy diets for all the people.

600 people including the Deputy Prime Minister, officers from center government and provincial government, members of the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance in Cambodia (SUN-CSA), NGOs, and students, etc participated in the event. At the venue, there were exhibition booths of international organizations, NGOs and private companies which are engaging in nutrition-related activities in Cambodia. FIDR also had one booth and staff of Nutrition Education and Promotion Project introduced the Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) to participants by distributing FBDG materials.

This year, FIDR supported 19 principals and teachers from four target schools in Kampong Cham Province to join this event. It was the first time for them to attend the national events related to nutrition, and they were really interested in the event. They shared their feeling after attending the event as follows.

“I felt surprised that many sectors working together in nutrition, so it is really important issue”
“Through the event, I felt encouraged to strengthen the activities such as school gardening and nutrition education which have been implementing in my school now. If these activities are well practiced at school, they will benefit not only our students, school and community, but they are also aligned with the national strategy as well as with what many stakeholders are working together.”