Education Kenya Project #21154

Feed 30 malnourished young children in Kenyan slum

by Macheo US

Project Report | Sep 18, 2017
Taking action to stop Malnutrition in Children

By Seth Mwangi | Food, Health and Nutrition Coordinator

Joyce

Overview

Malnutrition prevents children from reaching their full physical and mental potential. Health and physical consequences of prolonged states of malnourishment among children are: delay in their physical growth and motor development; lower intellectual quotient (IQ), greater behavioural problems and deficient social skills; susceptibility to contracting diseases. There are many causes of malnutrition but most important of them are lack of awareness of balanced nutrition, proper sanitation and restricted access to quality health services. The understanding about nourishment and nutrition is very limited due to the lack of awareness and availability of information on nutrients.

Our intervention on assisting malnourished children covers the spectrum of taking care of 30 malnourished children and capacity building to parent and local community. In the community, for instance, our efforts help to build the capacity of mothers to support optimal infant and young child feeding and maternal dietary practices. This includes empowering mothers to know cheap alternatives sources of nutrients and mobilizing parent to seek pre/post natal care for immunization. Other ways include child health services, improving access to clean water, increasing knowledge on safer management of human waste (hygiene), improving hand-washing and other food preparatory practices. This goes along in promoting practices to prevent and/or address health concerns.

Activities

Feeding the children on balanced meals, nutritious meals and stimulating them through play continued to be part of the activities. During the reporting period, the intervention on malnourished children worked with 30 children at Kiandutu. 8 children were severely malnourished, 8 were moderately malnourished, 14 were mild, while 1 had stunted growth. One child who was severely malnourished was referred to the Area social worker for other interventions, where she was taken to the pediatrician and was given some medicine and food supplements from the government. 3 children were also de-wormed.

Seminars

As highlighted many parent lack knowledge about nutrition and to counter this challenge we carried out seminars that were geared towards

Increasing the knowledge of mothers and care takers about the importance of feeding preparation, frequency, amount and types of feeds so as to maintain a good nutrition status for their children.
Increasing knowledge of mothers and care givers about the different food groups and how they can be combined to make a balance diet.
Increase the knowledge of a balanced diet amongst the people.
Improving the skills of mothers and care takers on how the locally available food is prepared and served in order to maintain its nutrition content and value with their full participation and involvement.

SUCCESS STORY OF JOYCE*

Joyce’s Mother is a teenage mother. They live at her grandmother’s place. The mother had undertaken a tailoring course but was unable to finish due to lack of fees and depended wholly on the grandmother for their needs. Life was difficult for Joyce and her mother, as her grandmother is alcoholic. When she got drunk, there was always a misunderstanding between the two of them. This resulted to Joyce going without food as mostly there is no peace at home.

After assessment, Joyce was found to be moderately malnourished. She weighed 6.7 kgs at an age of 1year 5 months. Also she had a delayed milestone (she was not able to stand on time) she was enrolled in the program on 14^th Sept, 2016.

Joyce stayed in the program for 6 months. The mother co-operated well and always attended seminars. She was exited on 31^st March, 2017. She weighed 9.0 Kgs and had fully recovered from a delayed milestone. The mother had finished her training and is able to look for jobs and cater for her child.

Conclusion

We will continue mobilizing several stakeholders across various sectors to engage in reduction of under nutrition among children. We have been able to mobilize parents-mothers and grandmothers to actively engage in improving the feeding practices and thereby the nutritional status of children. Families are now concerned about the weight and progress of their children and are making efforts to seek treatment of illnesses.

Appreciation

On behalf of our beneficiaries we would like to thank you for your continuous support. This has made it possible for Macheo to make an impact to the lives of the benefiting families positively.

Thank you.

Permalink

Jun 7, 2017
Success, child by child.

By Anne Thompson | President Macheo US

Mary

The help given to Mary in the Macheo Malnourished Program

Mary is the only child of a teenage mother who was married at the age of 17, and whose husband abandoned her during pregnancy. She returned to the family home, but her parents were not willing to give support. Being jobless, she often went without food.

When she gave birth to Mary, she did not produce enough breast milk for the newborn baby. In the course of two months, baby Mary was introduced to solid foods, which caused stomach complications and therefore she was often on medication. Her health became affected.

Mary was enrolled in the Macheo malnutrition intervention program. She was moderately malnourished, weighing just 15.8 pounds at the age of 13 months and suffered from delayed milestones, being unable to stand. She had lost her appetite and her stomach had protruded due to intestinal worms. At the beginning of her care in the Macheo program Mary was de-wormed, introduced to an exercise of standing using parallel bars supported by the caregiver, and continued to be fed with daily nutritious meals. With time she started to show some progress. Her mother was also cooperative in attending seminars and nutritional counseling provided by Macheo and local health workers.

Finally Mary benefited from normal health. She attained her expected nutritional status, gained her normal weight and recovered from her delayed milestones. Mary was released from the program weighing 19.4 pounds. Her mother was also empowered with information and seed capital for a micro business, to enable her to sustain herself and Mary.

Without your incredible help, Mary may still not be eating much or absorbing key nutrients due to intestinal worms and be unable to walk due to lack of nutrition. Thank you so much for your donations.

Anne Thompson

President Macheo US

Nutrition for the malnourished

Permalink

Mar 16, 2017
Standing with our children

By Seth Mwangi | FundAssist

Teresa at the Kiandutu outreach centre

Close to 3 million people including children are in facing starvation around Kenya. Extreme weather events in the country have caused substantial disruptions in agricultural production and contributed to shortage of food. Poor rainy patterns in 2016 have led to a severe drought crisis in Kenya. The long and short rains were poorly distributed and were too little. The Kenya meteorological department in 2016 predicted that there would be drought due to the falling rains. The impact of drought on this area of Kiandutu has led to water scarcity and high prices of food. Many parents in the areas of Kindutu rely on casual jobs which are not forthcoming. With parent being unable to feed their young ones, under-nutrition is putting more children at greater risk of dying from common infections, increasing the frequency of malnourished children which is contributing to delayed recovery. This is creating a potentially lethal cycle of worsening illness and deteriorating nutritional status. We understand that poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can also lead to stunted growth, which is irreversible and associated with impaired cognitive ability and reduced school and work performance in future.

Tackling the problem

To help, Macheo has been working to improve accessibility to nutrition services and strengthen technical capacities by training the communities on the importance of nutrition on children. Thanks to your help we have continued to benefit 30 malnourished children from nutrition preventative and treatment services in Kiandutu. We have been giving regular supplements of nutritious feeding daily to the beneficiaries all through. The children were well fed with nutritious porridge, a well balanced diet lunch, fruits and milk.

In addition to that, the beneficiaries benefited through stimulation which was facilitated through playing with toys and interaction with care givers.Play techniques with appropriate toys and focused on helping the children stimulated were key. Mothers were also taught on how to become more by stimulating their children to play to enhance mother-child interactions. Mothers were encouraged to continue the activities at home even after exit.

The care givers also encouraged children to stand and walk along the standing-walk bar to enhance their walking.

Growth monitoring: Children’s weight, length/height, and mid-upper arm and head circumferences were measured according to standard procedures. Those children who were found to have attained the correct nutrition status were exited and new ones were taken.Follow-up: Mothers/caregivers and their children were followed-up fortnightly. We also carry out systematic de-worming of children in schools so that we can reduce the effects of intestinal worms.

Community approach

Breastfeeding yields countless benefits for both mother and child. It provides children with a perfect balance of nutrients and antibodies for optimal growth and development. Macheo’s Innovations for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health initiative has been working to educate mothers and families about the importance of breastfeeding in Kiandutu. The community is benefiting in the health program that targets not just pregnant women and new mothers, but also the influential people in their lives. This means reaching their husbands if they have. The program encourages women to start breastfeeding as soon as their baby is born, and to continue breastfeeding exclusively for at least the next six months.

Saving lives

Anne Waithera, our staff at Kiandutu outreach program said: “The activities of the programme have really met our needs and the community approach has been the most significant factor. We can say that this approach and our commitment are at the root of behaviour changes and practices, which have improved the nutritional situation of the children in our community.

Success Story

Story of Teresa not (her real name)

Teresa lives with her parents who earn their living income by doing casual jobs. Physically before enrolment, Teresa looked unhappy, had weak legs, dry skin, pale eyes, an extended stomach and poor appetite.

After assessment she was found to be moderately malnourished. She weighed 7 kgs at 1½ years old. She had also suffered delayed milestone (not able to crawl). According to the mother, providing nutritious and adequate meals for the family was a challenge due to scarcity of work and the father was alcoholic and unsupportive. The child was referred to hospital where she was diagnosed with low calcium and blood level. She was put under the malnourished program and was given some supplements.

The mother cooperated well by following the schedule stipulated and within some few months, Teresa had started showing signs of improvement. Teresa stayed for seven months and was exited from the program having attained normal nutritional status, having fully recovered from delayed milestone and a very happy child.

The mother was also empowered to start a new business “Thanks to this project, I have more confidence in my abilities to contribute to the development of my family. I am not obliged to wait for support from on what our husbands bring home.” Teresa’s mother said.

Permalink

‹ 1 ... 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.