Picture with all participants on the FBDG launching seminar

For the first time in Cambodia, the first Food-Based Dietary Guideline (Cambodia version - Food Balance Guide) for children in school age was finally completed by the effort of FIDR and related ministries, international organizations and NGOs in Cambodia in developing the guideline. This dietary guideline was officially certified by the Ministry of Health of Cambodia and became a new guideline for nutritional intake of children. During the development of the guideline, there were many issues to be cleared, therefore, it was a pleasure for FIDR staffs to be able to successfully conduct this FBDG launching seminar.

Panel discussion with related ministries' representatives

On the launching seminar (November 20th, 2017), many participants from Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education of Cambodia, and other stakeholders from rural provinces came to listen the introduction of dietary guideline. In addition, we also had a pleasure of welcoming Professor Nobuo Yoshiike and Associate Professor Kaoru Kusama from Aomori University of Health and Welfare, who have been providing technical support for the project team so far, and gave a talk about practical cases of Japanese version dietary guidelines in the launching seminar.
For the Cambodian participants (especially who came from rural provinces), this was a rare opportunity for them to listen lectures from Japanese professors, so they listened the lectures enthusiastically.

Professor Yoshiike (on the left) gave a talk about Japanese case

Moreover, we also welcomed the representatives of Kyoto Morning Rotary Club who have had financial support in preparing teaching materials for dietary guidelines. By seeing FIDR project’ sites in actual, they can understand more about the activities that we have been implementing and we hope that the distance between donors, local staffs and Cambodia people has been shortened through this time. This seminar was also a good opportunity for us, as project members, to realize that we are supported by many people and we highly appreciate these supports.

In addition, the seminar was broadcasted as national news on Cambodian television. We expected that more Cambodian people will know and get interested in this topic.

The dietary guideline which was formulated this time (FBDG) is not our final goal. Promotion and dissemination of this guideline are important process for us to do as the next step of the project.

In the future, "Health" will be an official subject in Cambodian primary education and this dietary guideline would be published in the textbooks like the dietary guideline which has been used in Japanese textbooks about health and home economics. However, because there is no teacher about nutrition or nutritionist teaching in Cambodia in current, nutrition education and dietary education have not been conducted now.

Therefore, for the time being, in order to promote nutrition education at schools in Cambodia, it is necessary to conduct training and capacity building for the teachers as well. FIDR will continuously support these training activities in the future.

Food pyramid that shaped of Angkor Wat shows the food based dietary guidelines(26/6/2017)