Feed 30 malnourished young children in Kenyan slum

Malnutrition prevents children from reaching their full physical and mental potential. Health and physical consequences of prolonged states of malnourishment among children cause a delay in physical growth and motor development, lower intellectual quotient, more significant behavioral problems and deficient social skills, and susceptibility to contracting diseases. Furthermore, child malnutrition is associated with under-five mortality in Sub-Saharan African countries.

At Macheo, we believe that children are the future of any nation and if nations are to develop, they must take more care of their children. A child's health during the first five years of life is largely set by events occurring during prenatal and post-natal periods. We know malnutrition is one of the most health and welfare problems among infants and children in Kenya. It is an immediate result of both inadequate food intake and illness. Inadequate food intake is a consequence of insufficient food availability at the household level, improper feeding practices, or both Improper feeding practices include both in quality and quantity of food offered to young children as well as the timing of their introduction. To address this issue, our intervention gives parents knowledge on how to prepare a balanced meal and support parents who struggle to feed their children with startup seed capital to start businesses so they can start providing food for their children.  

We also support parents in understanding health issues like poor sanitation and how it puts young children at increased risk of illnesses particularly diarrheal and Cholera which adversely affect their nutritional status. Both inadequate food intake and poor environmental sanitation reflect underlying social and economic conditions.

Our Success

With your support, Macheo’s nutrition team organized with the previous parents who had been under the intervention and had been trained and were knowledgeable about nutrition, to organize seminar events that were focused on nutrition. The events included growth monitoring and an education session on child nutrition. Macheo led the session and the cost of buying fruits and vegetables that participants could sample. This education session emphasized that good feeding practices for infants and young children are essential to prevent all forms of malnutrition. Parents were also taught how to grow their meals in gunny sacks (kitchen gardens) so that they could transform eating habits and give them good, long-lasting background knowledge about the way food is produced, save money, and have available vegetables.