Building Strong Systems to Improve Health and Nutrition in Kenya

Growing up in Kilifi County on Kenya’s coast, Devota Leandry witnessed the persistent grip of food insecurity on families around her. “Kilifi has long struggled with food insecurity,” she says. “Even as a child, I saw families around me facing hunger and malnutrition.” That early exposure influenced her education and career, inspiring her to work in public health focused on nutrition.

Leandry has spent the last two years serving families as the Chief Nutrition and Dietetics Officer at Mtwapa County Hospital in Kilifi County. It’s the city where she was born, and where she’s raising her two sons—now in college and grade seven. She is giving back to her community through her work in public health.

After graduating from college with a degree in food and nutrition, Leandry had a brief stint in the private sector before her 9+ years supporting nutrition initiatives in the county.

Tackling Kenya’s Alarming Rates of Malnutrition

Kilifi County has some of the highest rates of child malnutrition in Kenya. About 37% of children under five are stunted, or short for their age, and 7% are wasted, or severely underweight. Being malnourished can significantly increase the risk that a child will die from common childhood illnesses and in Kilifi nearly half of child deaths under the age of five are linked to malnutrition.

A lack of understanding of good nutrition, coupled with poor growing conditions, rising prices, and limited access to healthcare contribute to these high rates of child malnutrition.

But progress is possible through collaboration.

As part of Transforming Lives through Nutrition, Helen Keller Intl, along with Vitamin Angels and iDE, is working closely with the government to combat malnutrition and provide critical support to mothers and children. Together they offer nutrition education, provide essential supplements, and give others the support they need to raise healthy, thriving children.

Funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Transforming Lives is a consortium that works across 12 countries in Asia and Africa to improve local health systems and support health workers, such as Leandry, to improve screening and treatment for malnutrition.

Continuous Support for Malnourished Children Through Partnership 

Leandry describes the support from Transforming Lives as “transformational” for both her team and the wider community. Her facility has benefited from consistent health education, on-the-job training, supportive supervision, and community sensitization through community health promoters.  

Helen Keller also helps provide regular supplies of life-saving commodities like prenatal supplements, ready-to-use supplementary food used to treat severely malnourished children, vitamin A, micronutrient powders, and deworming tablets. Even when the county experienced a two-year stockout of supplementary food for children, Helen Keller stepped in to fill the gap, a support that Leandry says directly prevented new cases of malnutrition. 

She presents a list of successes this partnership has brought, “We’ve seen children recover fully from malnutrition, and our default rate is zero—every child who starts our treatment completes it. We now have a 100% recovery rate.” 

Building Systems for Preventing Child Malnutrition 

Beyond treatment, the facility has also become a pioneer in prevention. With support from Helen Keller, it became the first hospital in Kilifi County to implement the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.

“Parents are beginning to understand that exclusive breastfeeding builds immunity and keeps children healthier,” Leandry shares. “It means fewer hospital visits and lower costs on medication. They can use that money to feed their families or send their kids to school.”

What keeps Leandry motivated, day after day, is the joy of seeing people get better. She adds, “I’ve had mothers tell me, ‘My baby is fine now, thank you,’ even when I don’t remember them. That’s the joy. That’s what keeps me coming back every morning. I truly feel like I’m doing what I was called to do.”