Application sur téléphone Androïde du jeu Nutricartes®️

The origin of the creation of the Nutricartes® method, an observation: It is easy to save children from malnutrition by giving them extra food for several weeks; however, programmes that fight against child malnutrition are not very common, results that seem to persist over time. It is from this observation that the creation of a nutritional education programme to prevent child malnutrition emerged as the answer to this problem.

The nutritional education of families for children under the age of 5 years old is given via a Nutricartes® game which is made of photo cards that represent foods found on the market and a mat with 4 colours: Red for construction foods (proteins), Yellow for Energy foods (carbohydrates, lipids), Green for Protection foods (vitamins, micro-nutrients) and Blue for water. This education is done in groups of 10 to 12 people by a nutritional assistant trained according to the I.C.E. technique. There is a weekly session for 5 weeks then a follow up 2 months, 6 months, 12 months and 24 months after the training.
On the application there are anthropometric measurements, the representation of a mat with 4 colours and 151 food photo cards as well as some hygiene based questions: clean water, washing your hands, latrines.
Health workers travel to see families with only a scale and a smartphone. The measures are noted and families are asked to class the foods in the 3 categories by moving the food photo cards on the styled mat. For correct answers a smiley face emoji appears and for incorrect answers a sad face emoji appears. The results are recorded and uploaded to the central computer once the health workers return to the health centres. In light of the results the head of the health centre and/or the French director of the mission can propose a new training course or a food supplement if the child is malnourished.

The initiative allows the monitoring of children’s growth in the months following the nutritional training and to observe the nutritional changes that the families have made. All of this helps to prevent families from having to travel to health centres.