By Heidi Reed | Edesia's Communications Manager
"We tell the children we're cooking dinner, but actually we're just boiling leaves. Eventually they fall asleep with an empty stomach. We have to lie to them to keep our reserves going."
This heart-wrenching quote is from a mother living in the Sahel. Her voice can be heard in the video link I have posted below. It truly illustrates the dire conditions in the Sahel, where the UN estimates that almost 5 million children are expected to become moderately or severely malnourished in 2014.
According to the latest report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the rains in late 2013 were not nearly enough to sustain the crops needed to nourish millions of people living in the Sahel. Mali is showing the greatest need for help, closely followed by Chad, and then Niger.
UN humanitarian organizations like UNICEF and the World Food Programme are therefore in desperate need of Plumpy'Nut and Plumpy'Sup, the products we make here our Providence, Rhode Island factory to treat severe and moderate acute malnutrition in children under the age of five.
In the past few months Edesia has shipped out over 25,000 boxes of Plumpy'Nut to UNICEF in the Sahel region (Burkina Faso and Chad), enough to potentially treat 25,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. We know it's not nearly enough to meet the incredible need, but that doesn't stop us from trying to do as much as we can.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support, which helps us to send as many boxes as possible to the children of the Sahel.
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