Nutrition Support for Orphans' Education Center

Our Feeding and Nutrition Program has continued to make tremendous changes in the lives of children. We operate 2 orphanage centers with 300 children whom we help to access quality education .Through our program, we feed children with enough nutritious food every breakfast and  lunch while at school. As a result, we have continued to make a significant impact in the lives of these children.  When children come to school in the morning,   a big saucepan of nutritious porridge is waiting them on a routine basis in the morning and at lunch which has greatly helped them to grow in height and weight. It should be noted that Children need a wide range of nutritious foods, with high intake of important minerals and vitamins such as protein and calcium. If your child’s intake of good food is poor, they can fail to gain or lose weight. This may be followed by failure to grow taller. This is because Growth and nutrition are closely related to each other. The average height of a child reflects her or his nutritional status. In fact there are shorter children, due to lack of nutrition and energy intake for adequate growth. We continue to thank our individual donors who have continued to support our work without whom we would not have been able to make such big strides.  

It should be noted that unstable seasons caused by erratic rains result into low crop yields and food insecurity that continue to affect nutrition of the children living in poor households in rural areas where we operate. Owing to global warming effects of environmental degradation, many segments of rural communities in Uganda where agriculture is the main economic activity are not yet versed in the modern farming methods that minimize these effects on the soil. In the end this greatly affects agricultural production; food is barely adequate even for domestic consumption which is the major factor of under nutrition and malnutrition among the children. This is also worsened by exotic crop diseases which affect crop yields but our feeding  program has continued to make a difference among children who come from their homes without food and neither are they sure of their next meal.

For example Godwin’s caretaker when visited had this to say, ‘I was frustrated and hopeless’, Linda recalls, A doctor had ordered me to leave my 3 children in the hospital because they looked malnourished. My small piece of land of bananas which is the family’s only dependable food source had been destroyed by drought. The family was struggling and we lacked enough food, but taking my children to study at Ramah orphanage center helped a lot, Linda closes her eyes and smiles, this changed the lives of my children. The meals they receive at school are enough to sustain them throughout the day until we shall recover from drought’, she narrates.

With healthful nutrition, children are in a very important period for gaining calcium and for building up strong bones, especially in girls. That is why we include a lot of dark leafy vegetables in the children’s meals, fruits, legumes and cereals among others.

We continue to thank and appeal to all our friends and donors to consider their constant support to our program in order to continue transforming lives of the vulnerable children. Thank you.

Links:

• website

During this period under review, we focused our implementation on both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions that address the complex causes of malnutrition in the rural communities of Uganda especially in Apac and Ibanda districts. After realizing that the underlying causes of malnutrition have to do majorly with household food insecurity and with unhealthy environment like socio-cultural, economic factors among others, our efforts were put on training women to have decision-making power over the household income and nutrition, because when they succeed in this area, they are more likely than men to spend on food and healthcare, particularly for their children. We specifically facilitated women in production diversification which enhanced their production of nutrient-dense crops and small-scale livestock. Additionally, we also built the capacity of women to improve food processing, storage and preservation which help to retain nutrients, reduce crop losses, and decrease the time it takes to prepare nutritious meals, supported them to expand markets for nutritious foods and market access for vulnerable groups as well as incorporating nutrition promotion and education in the program in the community. We are happy that apart from the  help  given to households to promote nutrition among their homes to benefit their children, the program has also enabled households to break poverty cycle through this process of empowerment

Malnutrition is still a widespread problem among Ugandan rural communities like elsewhere in the world. According to the 2018 Global Nutrition Report , 150.8 million children under five are stunted, 50.5 million are wasted, and 38.3 million are overweight. 20 million babies are born with low birth weight each year. One-third of all women of reproductive age are anemic –a debilitating condition caused primarily by micronutrient deficiencies.  (Development Initiatives 2018a) Furthermore, it should ne noted that  malnutrition in early childhood can irreversibly damage physical and cognitive development, affecting a child’s capacity to learn and succeed in school, increasing a person’s risk of infection and disease, and generally diminishing performance and earning potential throughout the lifetime. Therefore Nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions greatly help to mitigate these problems. We are happy that during this period under report, we directly engaged women from 89 households and impacted lives of 178 children through our work.

We are indebted to all our supporters who without their generous donations, we would have been here to write on these accomplishments. We say Thank You, ‘Asante Sana’ and at the same time request you to remain supporting us as we make a big difference in the lives of children

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Links:

• website