By Vicki Allen Penwell | Executive Director
Today I want to report on just one baby in Mercy In Action's First 1,000 Days program. The quote “whoever saves one life saves the world entire” is applicable here.
Most of the babies we enroll in our First 1,000 Days program are born into extreme poverty. Without intervention, approximately one out of every 38 babies born here in the Philippines will not survive to celebrate their second birthday. This is where you come in. By donating to this project, we are able to hire and train women from our communities to walk beside families for the first 1,000 days of a baby's life. We call these home visitors "Kasamas", which means "Companions" in English, and they are specially trained to monitor growth and development, recognize illness, offer health education to the families and communities, and most of all, to prevent and treat malnutrition.
Baby CJ was a little girl on a dangerous trajectory, but she found help in the Mercy In Action First 1,000 Days program you support.
Sher is the companion assigned to CJ who has visited her each month of her life since birth; I will let Sher tell you about her visit this month: "Baby CJ, for me, her story stood out this month. I am so happy and overwhelmed seeing her gaining weight. She's really different from the very first time of my visit. Because that time she was so thin, and been admitted to hospital. I keep on telling the mother to continue breastfeeding. Never get tired of giving food and encouraging baby CJ to eat foods like lugaw, cooked rice w/ soup , root crops and fruits like bananas which is very easy to find in their place. Seeing her right now, gaining weight and healthy, was really a job well done to me and to the parents. I really salute them, on how they take care baby CJ."
Your donations matter to the one. And there are hundreds more babies just like CJ being visited right now in slums and rural communities on three islands in the Philippines because of your generosity.
From CJ, thank you for a good start in life!
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