Help us fight malnutrition in Argentina

The brain is the human organ which develops most quickly. It weights 35 gr at birth and reaches 900 gr at 14 months old. Its weight when an adult is 1200 gr. During the first months it increases its size at 2mg per minute. The future of the central nervous system is determined in the first 14/18 months of life. If during that period the child does not receive an adequate amount of nutrients and the correct stimulation, the brain development will be affected with significant risk of suffering mental weakness. Conin’s Centers invest all their human and social capital to work on preventing this from happening.

This is why we continue working with Conin Pilar, with the Child Undernourishment Prevention and Human Promotion Center that is part of the “Red Conin” and follows its methodology to address the problem. Its aim is to take care of the attention, education and assistance of children between 0 to 5 years old with nutritional and social risk. We also work with pregnant women at risk of giving low birth weight children. All this is done in response to the social demand of Barrio Toro (Derqui) community. which presents a social and economy problems like: 24.8% of population under basic needs unsatisfied (NBI),with no drinkable water, no drains, high unemployment and more than seven people per house living in poverty and precarious conditions, low levels of education, sometimes reaching illiteracy, plus increasing addiction problems and domestic violence 

The strategies used to address this problem and the work plan done were the following:

• Periodic pediatric and nutritionist control for children
• Literacy  program for children 2 to 5 years old
• Follow-up through the work of social assistants, interviews at the center and home visits.
• Workshop to stimulate both mothers and babies up to 2 years old.
• Nutritional workshops and cooking classes.
• Health programm workshop
• Knitting, sewing, gardening , pottery.
• Pre-natal workshops
• Program: Complementary food assistance
• Program: “ Buen Comienzo” for pregnant  women at risk: medical check-ups, psychological support and informative workshops.

Thanks to your help, nowadays the Pilar Conin Prevention Center open the centre on  a 4^th day in order to redistribute the children and to add more families to the program. We could increase the number of children under the program to 21, and 15 families. Otherwise, 3 children reach at least percentile 10 in weight/height according to age. One family with two kids left the program because their parents could not assist because of their work. The aim for this month is to incorporate 4 new kids to reach the maximum of 25 children per day.

During this period, we could identify changes in families under program. As well, as a consequence of the habits change, we could observe positive changes in the children´s physical and mental development.

Thanks a lot for your help! Now 21 children can have a better life!!!!

The contribution asked through the Project “Fighting Malnutrition” will allow us to increase the number of children attending the prevention program. 

We are asking for financial support to be able to open the centre on  a 4^th day in order to redistribute the children and to add more families to the program. Our aim is to increase the number of children under the program to 100. 

Indirectly, all the families will be benefitted through the learning of better habits incorporated by the mothers who attend our program. And consequently, the whole community will be positively affected.