After attending a campaign that was conducted by Gardens for Health International (GHI) to enroll women in the program, women were informed by local leaders to bring their children under the age of 5 to come to the nearest local authority office called “akagari.” We were supposed to start measuring the weight and the height of the kids. We had a small turnout of about 30 mothers, which is a small turnout – in previous campaigns when mothers are well informed about the program, turnout exceeds 30. Of the 30 families, 15 of them had children suffering from malnutrition with a few suffering from severe malnutrition.
When I was writing down the names of the kids after measuring their weight I could lift them, hold them and look into their eyes. It was heartbreaking to see a 17-month-old girl, who to my knowledge was suffering from severe malnutrition, who could not smile or cry because she was very weak. Smiling or crying for that baby was physical work – she wasn’t able to do either of the two as a result of malnutrition .Normally a malnourished person’s body has difficulty doing normal things such as growing, and physical work becomes problematic.
What do you think when you look at that child who is suffering at the beginning of her life? For me I think of the shame and the guilt that the world has neglected these children. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year – that’s more than five million deaths. DO YOU SEE THAT? Is it because the world doesn’t produce enough food to feed the children? I don’t think the answer is yes. According to the World Hunger Report, world agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day. So why is it that our children are still suffering from malnutrition and stunting? Why do we see deaths related to malnutrition? These are questions that we have to think about and find answers to. Different organizations have come out with strategies to fight malnutrition by giving malnourished children the food and nutrients they need, but we still have a along way to go because we still see children in the developing countries suffering and dying of malnutrition.
There are many crimes in this world but the worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life, and destroying the capacity of future generations because malnutrition causes learning disabilities, mental retardation, poor health, blindness and premature death. Something must be done to stop this; policies must be drafted to put an end to malnutrition. Many of the things we need in life can wait but the child cannot, right now is the time his senses are being developed if we don’t act now we will see premature deaths and a future generation of unhealthy adults.
We can all do something to stop the dying and start the living. WFP, nonprofit organizations and governments are applying different strategies to end malnutrition but numbers are showing that there are still many children who are waiting and asking for help and we can’t answer them tomorrow.