330 Kids Reach Nutrition and Development in Bogota

The Amiguitos Royal Foundation is an entity committed to child nutrition that has been the lucky heiress of more than three decades of arduous and tireless work of the Nutrir Foundation.

During this year we have collected 330 pairs mother –child, accompanying their processes from affection and understanding. For the Foundation is rewarding to see how moms are empowering themselves, which makes them more diligent in their role as mothers. We often observe how friendships and support networks are established between them, which allows them access to jobs while taking care of the children of the others. Likewise, when they feel valuable, their levels of anxiety decrease and the toxic stress that is evident in children also decreases, which allows them to be calm and their nutritional recovery and neurodevelopment is potentialized.

In order to accelerate the recovery processes of children, we make visits to their homes. During these visits, we work with families to improve housing conditions; but the most important thing is that we strengthen the bonds of trust and affection in them. These visits are accompanied by professional students of different disciplines, according to the needs of each child; for example, if they have problems of malnutrition, medical students and nutritionist accompanied us; if the problem is neurodevelopment, occupational, physical and language therapists accompanied us. After each visit the Foundation is allowed to trace the home and make a subsequent visit, always with the intention of strengthening the bonds of trust and affection.

For the Amiguitos Royal Foundation, love nourishes and all human beings are constantly learning, that´s why we all learn from everyone. 

• GLOBLA_GIVING_INFORME_NOVIEMBRE_2017.docx (DOCX)

The Amiguitos Royal Foundation is an entity committed to child nutrition that has been the lucky heiress of more than three decades of arduous and tireless work of the Nutrir Foundation.

Specifically with the Binomial mother and son program, we have attended 44 pregnant mothers during the first semester of this year, which have been monitored monthly through anthropometric measures and hemoglobin intake. Of these, 4 pregnant women with low weight, 1 pregnant women with anemia and 3 others who had a high social risk. These 8 pregnant women have been linked to the daily lunch service. Currently a total of 26 pregnant women already had their babies (20 babies with adequate weight and size and 6 babies were premature). A total of 22 children remain with exclusive breastfeeding and 4 babies who have been fed with formula milk due to medical prescription.

For this year, the Foundation had a participation of 330 children between 1 and 3 years old. As usual, mothers and their companions attend once a week to the Foundation and participate in collaborative groups in which they approach the central themes of health, nutrition, stimulation and child development, reduction of toxicity and maturation of the executive functions.

In the Binomial groups they articulate the professional exercises of the Community Medicine Program of the University of La Sabana and the practices of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy of the Colombian School of Rehabilitation. Through these alliances, mothers and their babies can access to community exercises from promotion and prevention, as well as intervention plans adjusted to the situation of each child when they have specific clinical conditions. For example, in 2017 children with diagnosis of cancer, generalized development delays, cerebral paralysis and learning problems have been attended.

The strategy of home accompaniment has gradually strengthened this year. Home accompaniment has become a very important consulting opportunity, visiting homes, has made us understand the reality and daily life of children and understand with clarity the dynamics of relation of the families and their relation with the difficulties presented by children. It is also the opportunity to build more empathic relationships with families, because the team’s position is collaborative and supportive, not judgment or evaluation. Under this view, the co-responsibility of the family group is greater and the recovery processes become faster.

In the same way, home accompaniment has revealed the precarious housing conditions of a large number of children. Dark and humid spaces, presence of pests, overcrowding (several people per room and more than two children, children and adults in the same bed), unhealthy (garbage management, food preservation or home hygiene) and unsafe locations are common. These housing conditions have been frequently associated with severe dermatitis, respiratory disease and diarrheal disease. In view of this situation, additional efforts have been made by the Foundation to minimize these factors.

• GLOBAL_GIVING.docx (DOCX)