Healthy Futures for Haiti's Children

The Care 2 Communities (C2C) nutrition program is dedicated to preventing and treating malnutrition, including nutritional deficiencies. We firmly believe that good nutrition is fundamental to improving the health of the communities we serve, particularly the health of children aged 6 to 59 months, who are among the most vulnerable.

 Our community health team conducts key interventions, such as screening all children in clinics and in the field. Following screening, children may be identified as moderately or severely malnourished. We then enroll them in a suitable plan and educate caregivers on administering Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF) daily. To ensure children are on the path to healthier weights, we also provide them with amoxicillin, vitamin A, and albendazole for deworming. Supporting parents of malnourished children is crucial, and we provide them with advice and support that promotes nutritional recovery. This support also encourages adherence to treatment and follow-up appointments, which reduces the risk of complications, speeds up recovery, and prevents relapses.

 Some recent achievements include recruiting a new program supervisor, conducting educational sessions in communities and clinics on balanced diets, screening all children under 5 for malnutrition during clinic visits, displaying educational nutrition videos in clinic waiting rooms, distributing nutrition pamphlets in the communities we serve, and training new employees on administering vitamin A and deworming medication.

 Our progress in numbers:

• Screened 2,789 children under 5 seen for the first time
• Admitted 13 children for severe malnutrition
• Admitted 56 children for moderate malnutrition
• Three children graduated from the program and achieved a healthy weight

 We are proud of the progress of our malnutrition program and look forward to expanding it further into the field so that parents who cannot access C2C clinics can treat their malnourished children closer to home.