Media Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM), an advocacy group with focus on curbing children malnutrition in Nigeria, has explained why it was established, saying that the goal is to bridge the gap in nutrition reportage.

MeCAM National Coordinator, Mr. Remmy Nweke, in his intervention at a media roundtable on “Exclusive Breastfeeding: Changing the Nigerian story” in Abuja recently to mark the 2019 World BreastFeeding Week organised by the Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).

He said that the group was founded by senior media editors to bridge the gap between the media as an institution, practitioners and correctness of story-telling emanating from Nigeria as far as malnutrition is concerned.

MeCAM, he also said, is well-positioned to drive this collaboration in the Nigerian media space and across Africa for betterment of our children and curb malnutrition generally from Nigeria, considering the benefits of Exclusive Breastfeeding, for instance.

He also called for more fund at the event held at Bon Hotel Elvis, Abuja, to be made available to advocacy on EBF, noting that every 1USD invested has good return on investment of about 16 USD, currently.

Nweke further recalled that this year’s theme is on “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding” noting that more is saved when the right and accurate information is passed.

Media, he said, cannot give what it does not have and called for more capacity building for media practitioners, especially MeCAM membership, who already committed to highlight issues on child malnutrition in Nigeria and beyond, for better children growth including exclusive breastfeeding, overweight, stunted growth, undernourishment to name a few.

Founded in August 2015, MeCAM has membership across online, print, broadcast media respectively.

•Photo shows MeCAM National Coordinator Remmy Nweke with the First Lady of Kaduna State, Aisha El-Rufai, and Hajia Nafisa of Express Radio Kano at the media roundtable on EBF

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