By Olimatou Coker
The State Registered Nurses [SRN] programme of the School of Nursing has been crowned champion of the inter-tertiary breastfeeding advocacy competition — a battle of knowledge, advocacy and passion for infant survival.
The SRN programme crushed the field with an impressive 95 points to emerge overall winner.
The competition was organised on Friday by the National Nutrition Agency in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and with support from Unicef, held at the NaNA Hall in Kanifing as part of activities marking World Breastfeeding Week 2026.
The contest brought together students from tertiary institutions across the country to sharpen advocacy skills and raise awareness on breastfeeding — at a time when The Gambia is making progress, but dangerous gaps remain.
School of Public Health’s Higher National Diploma (HND) programme came second with 80.5 points, while Hadi Gala International College took third with 72 points.
The executive director of NaNA, Malang N Fofana, laid bare the crisis the competition seeks to fix.
“Currently only 36% of mothers are initiating breastfeeding within the first hour of birth. Only 36%. We want every child to initiate breastfeeding within the first hour. But 36% of mothers are initiating it right now. For exclusive breastfeeding, only 54% of mothers are doing it right now. There is a challenge that we wanted to address, and we think of a very good way of addressing that,” Fofana said.
He said the challenge is ensuring more mothers initiate breastfeeding within the first hour and exclusively breastfeed for the first six months.
“Engaging students from health-related institutions is a deliberate move to prepare the next generation of advocates,” he explained.
Nutrition Officer at Unicef, Bakary D Dampha, said the competition is one of its kind — designed to turn young people into advocates.
“This is one of its kind that we are reflecting to see how young people can start to be advocates for breastfeeding. For me, that is the key takeaway from this competition, in that at the end of the day we have young people going home as advocates for breastfeeding,” Dampha said.
Director of SBCC at NaNA, Ousman Dem, said while World Breastfeeding Week is a week-long commemoration, in The Gambia it goes beyond.
“This is a week-long commemoration, but because of its significance in The Gambia, we usually go beyond that week. We do commemorate it for a whole month, sometimes even beyond the month. This is why we are here today to continue that commemoration, which signifies the importance attached to breastfeeding, especially exclusive breastfeeding,” Dem said.
Students used drama, poetry, and powerful presentations anchored on protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding.
At the end, winners were presented with medals and prizes.
For NaNA and Unicef, the objective is clear: ensure future health professionals carry the message into communities where they will serve. Strengthening breastfeeding means not only supporting mothers, but equipping the next generation of health workers with knowledge and confidence to become uncompromising advocates for optimal infant and young child feeding.
SRN has set the standard — 95 points, first place, champions.