Deputy Project Manager
Malawi

Jaden has more than eight years’ work experience in clinical care, hospital management, and community-based research in nutrition and reproductive health. He has a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Malawi and is pursuing a PhD in International Health & Nutrition at the University of Tampere.  

Jaden, what do you do at FANTA?

I provide technical and clinical oversight to the Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and Nutrition Care, Support and Treatment (NCST) programs. This involves development of the national CMAM operational plan, guidelines, job aids, M&E tools, training materials, and pre-service resource toolkits, as well as designing, implementation, and documentation of quality improvement (QI) in CMAM and NCST.

What has been your proudest moment on the FANTA project?

My role involves travel with Ministry of Health officials to mentor health workers in the nutrition rehabilitation units (NRUs) in Malawi. During mentorship, we do ward rounds with the health workers to review children admitted with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and discuss challenging cases. The common challenging case involves a child who is failing to respond to feeds. Using QI, and following the updated guidelines on management of SAM, we support the health workers to identify all possible problems and agree on the next course of management of the child. Days later, when I receive a phone call from the health workers that the child has recovered and will be discharged, I can’t help but get excited by the health worker’s excitement, whose confidence and hope is renewed that the life of a child with SAM can indeed be saved. It is this confidence and hope that helps motivate the health worker to apply the new knowledge when another child with SAM is admitted to the NRU. This is one of my proud moments that bear testimony that QI and use of the updated guidelines are helping save the lives of children.