 
Contact Address Details:
Gambia Food and Nutrition Association
Banjul
area
GAFNA House head office
Bakau Head office
Kombo Coastal Road
PO Box 111, Banjul
Kanifing Municipality, Ksmd
The Gambia,
West Africa
Tel no: +220 4496745 / 4496742 / 4496741
Fax:
4496743
Email: gafna@qanet.gm
Directions:
Behind the Independence Stadium scoreboard in
Bakau.
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Background Information:
GAFNA, which was established in June 1986, is a registered
non-governmental organisation aiming to improve the quality
of food
consumed by the general population and to promote food security
via a self-sufficient society in The Gambia.
To this end it's operations are spread around the country
in the form of around 120 Health
and Nutrition Program Centres (CMCS) which are operated by
the communities themselves in the form of Community Management
Committees whose membership is elected from their region's
vicinity.
Current & Past
Activities & Schemes:
• Food Preservation & Processing
 The
program was funded by Village Aid UK and ran from 1996 to
2000. The emphasis of the scheme was to enhance the productivity
and skills
of rural women and to minimize post harvest horticultural
wastage. As a result 14 groups spread out in Gambia received
training workshops on producing tomato puree, fruit preserves
such as jam production, pickles and sauces.
• Peer Counsellors Program
Along with it collaborative partners i.e. the Ministry
of Health & Social Welfare, GM/CRS/ and the
local CMCS it initiated a maternal / childhood scheme called
the Child Survival Programme which targets the nutritional
requirements of mothers and enhancing the feeding practices
of children and infants.
The project's main focus is targeted at children from birth to
three years old in 10 villages dotted in the Central River
Region, the South and North banks. Mothers of malnourished
children, older brothers & sisters, grandmothers and fathers
would also be welcome.
• Safety Net Project
Early this century it had been assessed that people in certain
regions of The Gambia and Senegal suffered from acute and
yearly food insecurity (especially during the rainy season)
due to bad financial access to, and reduced availability of,
food. As a result USAID aid program called Development Activity
Program (DAP 2) was initiated to address these underlying
food security
issues through the promotion of sesame seed cultivation on
farms and food safety nets.
The aims of the DAP II projects was better food distribution to
susceptible individuals and to ensure that institutions can
manage safety net interventions for vulnerable groups and to
scrutinise and promote food safety nets in the Central River
Region (CRR) and Upper River Region (URR).
Food rations were delivered to 1,500 people identified as
vulnerable for half a year at the community level and 1,500
received rations for a year at the institutional level. The
project ran for 5 years in the form of wheat soy mix, lentils,
refined vegetable cooking oil and corn.
Qualifying individuals received their commodities through
Charitable Organizations, Government Health Centres and
Community Management Committees.
• Refugee Assistance Programme
The UNHCR funded project which was executed by the Gambia Food
and Nutrition Association has two main aims: the urban caseload
comprised of mostly Liberian refugees as well as a few from
other African countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi and
the (now closed) Bambally Refugee Camp aiding refugees who fled
north into The Gambia from the Casamance area of Senegal. Aid
took the form of food, health, education, potable water,
sanitation and crop growing.
They also received micro-finance in order to pursue sustained
self-employment as a means of income generation and to be
less reliant on humanitarian assistance.
• HIV / Aids
The aim of the project which began in October 2004 and ran
for 15 months was to fight HIV / Aids via community participation.
It was funded by The Gambia Food and Nutrition Association
(GAFNA) and the National
Aids Secretariat (NAS) under the Rapid Response Project
(HARP). It was carried out in the Upper River Region in 25
target villages.
Its objectives was to raise the level of access to advisory and
counselling services about HIV and other STDs, to increase the
capacity of help groups and local institutions, to improve the
nutritional wellbeing of vulnerable groups such as the
chronically ill, children and mothers.
Organisational
Structure:
GAFNA's structure is made up of their membership, seven board of
directors, director of administration / finance,
evaluation and monitoring, programmes, project and their support
staff.
The institutions activities are in food and nutrition, health,
education, humanitarian assistance, community development and
disaster management and relief.
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