Sustainable Development Goals - your story of creating a food secure world
By: Mylene Rodríguez Leyton
Teaching Researcher, Nutrition and Dietetics Program, Research group on food and human behavior. Universidad Metropolitana-Barranquilla, Colombia.
How to help you reach a world without hunger and in the sense of food security?
I am a Dietician Nutritionist and my work focuses on the training of future professional students of Nutrition and Dietetics, I work as a research professor at the Metropolitan University, in the city of Barranquilla located in the Colombian Caribbean. Our work contributes to reach a world without hunger and in which food safety prevails from the teaching, research and extension processes; based on the model and the pedagogical strategies found in the classroom of the class, in the practice sites, in the projects of formative research, in extension and in innovation. The solution of the problems of Hunger in communities, groups and vulnerable people, especially children, seniors and pregnant mothers.
Teachers play roles as advisors and facilitators in the management processes of policies, plans, programs and projects in local, national and local scenarios.
From the research the teachers contribute with the generation of new knowledge and innovation products with scientific evidence to be taken as an input in the interventions for attention and prevention of malnutrition.
Has your work changed after the SDGs were approved? If yes, how?
Of course, in my personal experience in the courses of deepening in public nutrition with students of last semesters I have generated spaces for discussion, analysis and reflection so that students understand the complexity of the problems and later as future professionals assume that they have social responsibility in the solution of nutritional problems.Particularly in the month of October 2018, in commemoration of World Food Day, I had the opportunity to organize a Symposium with national and local guests to execute and share together with a team of teachers from the Nutrition and Dietetics Program. different points of view related to Hunger and food security, with the generation of innovative products; but the most important point was the realization of a Panel called Zero Hunger where a group of students of Nutrition and Dietetics from Colombia and students from Mexico who were in exchange at my University made an analysis from their perspective of students on the problem of malnutrition in the two countries Colombia and Mexico; this intervention generated a positive impact on the students attending because they allow them to become aware from the identification of the magnitude of the problem through the appropriation of the data and the figures of the indicators, allowing them to empower themselves and prepare themselves to exercise an active role from your period of professional training. A product of this event was a compilation of reflections elaborated by students in a World Food Day Bulletin, In this year 2019 with a group of my Seventh Semester students; a series of forums were held in the classroom to present their views on the problems of hunger and malnutrition, from case reviews and bibliographical reviews, then the students individually elaborated writings that they socialized with their peers. class, later the students who had common themes were integrated to elaborate new writings and finally elaborated with a magazine that entitled Public Nutrition to the Day in which they are the authors of the essays; this experience allows them to make their ideas visible, creates a sense of ownership and sensitizes them to the role they play in the eradication of hunger and malnutrition.
Can you share some stories about how your work has contributed successfully to achieving SDG 2 in your country?
In Colombia, the entity responsible for malnutrition care policies is the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, and the Colombian Family Welfare Institute also plays a leading role in the implementation of the policy of comprehensive care for the poor. early childhood.With the emergence of the Sustainable Development Goals, in Colombia food and nutrition security policies have been strengthened; guidelines and norms have been defined to fight against malnutrition; the strategy of care and prevention of child malnutrition is being developed, which is a set of food and nutrition actions with a family and social pedagogical perspective aimed at the care and prevention of malnutrition from pregnancy, its objective is to improve the nutritional status of the beneficiaries prevent low weight for gestational age in pregnant women and malnutrition in children under 5 in previously targeted areas.In Colombia there is an intersectoral commission for food and nutrition security that is composed of government entities that coordinate in a coordinated manner the actions to achieve the objectives and goals of food security for the execution of the food and nutrition security policy in the country. Priority has been given to regions where morbidity and mortality rates due to malnutrition have been high, as in the case of the departments of La Guajira and Chocó.For its part, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been developing projects to strengthen the rural sector in response to a need for post-conflict.We, as academy participate directly in the development of these policies and contribute from the community level in extension projects, volunteering, to participation in the planning and execution of public policies on food and nutrition; likewise from the research we are generating new knowledge, proposing innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce hunger and achieve food security; We are clear that there are challenges such as the issue of migration that affects the population of Venezuela that arrives in Colombia under difficult conditions of health and nutrition.
My vision as a teacher is to ensure that our young students and professionals lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition and achieve Zero Hunger in our local environments, thus adding to the achievement of SDG 2.
Проф. Mylene Rodríguez Leyton