The Wawa Illari project started in 2017 and it is continuing…
The University Inca Garcilaso Vega (UIGV) in Lima is the ICDP partner on the ground, whereas Ana Sofia Mazzini, chair of ICDP Peru, is coordinating the implementation of all the components of this project – a demanding task as this is a complex multidisciplinary project, where in addition to ICDP there are three other components that are led by our colleagues from Canada: nutritional and health programmes, as well as teaching families to grow vegetables in community gardens and at home.
It is a research project with Canadian sponsorship. The overall aim is to improve the psychosocial, nutrition and health development of the children in Pachacamac. Pachacamac, is an area south of Lima (photo below), characterized by desert conditions whose population has a very low socio-economic status, with high incidents of malnourishment in children.
In 2017 a core group of medical professionals from the university UIGV was trained in ICDP. (Photo above was taken from one of the workshops.) In April 2018 they will start the ICDP training process of a team of nurses (the nurses are in their final year as students at UIGV) who will eventually become ICDP facilitators.
In the third phase one hundred families will attend the ICDP weekly sessions over a period of three months. The same families and children that receive ICDP will also be involved in the other components of this project and each component will be evaluated by comparing pre and post data.