MAMI Project – Call to share experiences

Provision of guidance on the management of malnutrition in infants under six months of age is severely hampered by a poor evidence base upon which to base materials. Consequently, there are difficulties supporting these infants. The Management of Acute Malnutrition in Infants (MAMI) Project was developed to investigate the management of moderately and severely malnourished infants under six months in emergency programmes, in order to establish interim good practice guidelines. Funded by the UNICEF-led Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Nutrition Cluster, the MAMI Project is being implemented in a collaboration between the ENN, The Centre for International Health and Development (CIHD) at UCL, London and Action Contre la Faim.

The objectives of the project are to establish what is currently advised or recommended in the form of guidelines, policies and strategies by different organisations and to determine what is carried out in practice. Quantitative data collection is well underway and we now wish to develop the qualitative component.

We are keen to capture the experiences and observations of those who encounter infants under six months in the course of their work - whether at an advisory (e.g. agency headquarters) or field level, and whether agency-based or as an individual. You may be directly involved in managing malnutrition in this age-group, or have been faced with the challenge of 'what to do' when they present. You may have years of experience or this may be your first field posting - either way, we want to hear from you.

Over the next couple of months, the lead researcher will be carrying out phone interviews with field staff. If you would like to contribute, email/call/write (see below) with your contact details and a couple of lines on your experience, and he will call you back.

Contact: Marko Kerac, Research Fellow & PhD Student, UCL Centre for International Health & Development, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK

Tel: + 44 (0)207 905 2262 (work), + 44 (0)7590 637 342 (mobile)
email: marko.kerac@gmail.com or m.kerac@ich.ucl.ac.uk
www.ucl.ac.uk/cihd/research/nutrition/mami
www.ennonline.net/research