From March 31 to April 2, 2026, the Nutrition and Community Development Division of the Community Livelihood Enhancement and Resilience Project (CLEAR) organized a refresher training on nutrition works for nutrition staff of district and village levels from 14 target districts. The training was held at the Conference Hall of the Lao Women’s Union Central Training Center in Vientiane Capital. It was chaired by Mr. Bounsi Nanthaphone, Deputy Executive Director of the CLEAR Project. A total of 47 participants attended the training (14 district nutrition staff and 33 village nutrition staff).
The objective of the training was to review nutrition activities and behavioral change interventions, with a focus on extracting lessons learned from the implementation in the first batch of villages (Batch I). This was to ensure that all nutrition activities are implemented with high quality, in accordance with the steps and methods specified in the operational manual that included: procedures for organizing Community Nutrition Group (CNG) meetings, training for small shop owners on nutritious snacks, home nutrition gardens, multi media peer learning (MMPL), wild foods, shade houses, goat raising for milk production, monitoring and evaluation, guidelines for implementing activities in Batch I villages, and other related topics.
The content of this training included:
- Overall situation of nutrition activities and lessons learned from implementation in Batch I villages.
- Nutrition activities and the objectives of each activity.
- Guidelines for operations in Batch I villages, and discussions on food provision after June 2026.
- Incentive plans for home nutrition gardening and multi media peer learning (MMPL), including mobile phone rewards.
- Training for small shop owners on producing nutritious food powder, nutritious snacks, recipes, and the impacts of unhealthy foods (group work).
- Utilization of wild foods to prepare nutritional powder for mothers and young children, including ingredients such as shrimp, egg mango, fiddlehead fern, tamarind, honey, etc.
- The food system manual, with examples on using money to purchase nutritious food (conditional cash transfers from the project, funds from village nutrition groups, income from selling vegetables, etc.).
- Reporting mechanisms (formats, data entry, data verification, indicators, and all reporting forms).
9. Preparation of the 2026 annual work plan, training budget for Community Nutrition Groups (CNG), and monthly work guidelines.
During the training, participants were divided into groups to discuss the topics assigned by the trainers. Each group then presented their findings. Role-playing exercises were also conducted to practice and strengthen understanding of the implementation steps according to the guidelines, particularly the organization of Community Nutrition Group meetings.
In addition, participants visited a real site — a shop selling processed food products (Dak Dae Shop) — with a special focus on nutritious snack processing. This visit helped participants gain practical ideas on how to promote and advise small shop owners in their target villages to process and sell nutritious snacks to the community.
The training course was successfully completed and officially closed in the afternoon of April 2, 2026, with excellent results.
