By Heidi Reed | Project Leader
Just yesterday our Shipping and Logistics Manager, Andrew Kamara (pictured at right above), woke up at 4 a.m. and hit the road from his home in eastern Connecticut, leaving before his wife and three young children were even awake yet.
He made the three and half hour drive to Port Elizabeth in New Jersey, because he wanted to make sure everything went smoothly with a shipment of about 34,020 cartons of lifesaving Plumpy'Sup (produced and packaged in our Rhode Island factory) that will soon be on their way to Cameroon (one of several countries in the Sahel region of Africa) in a giant cargo ship.
Inside the 34,020 cartons of Plumpy'Sup there are over five million portable foil packets, enough to help about 85,000 severely malnourished children under the age of five recover their health and build up their immune systems to make them even more resilient against future shocks. This "miracle" food – a squeezable fortified peanut paste – is desperately needed in refugee camps for Nigerians who fled the Boko Haram insurgency.
Plumpy'Sup is similar to Plumpy'Nut. It has the same number of calories (500) and similar mix of vitamins and minerals but it is made with soy flour instead of nonfat dry milk powder. This difference gives it the classification of a Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF). It can be given to children in emergencies with any form of acute malnutrition, with or without a doctor's diagnosis, unlike Plumpy'Nut, which is only given out after a doctor has confirmed the diagnosis of severe acute malnutrition. This is why Plumpy'Sup is often used in emergency situations, such as the Haiti earthquake or the refugee crisis in Cameroon.
There are many steps that go into every shipment. With this report we wanted to give you a peak behind the scenes to show you how people like Andrew are going the extra mile every day to help end the suffering caused by malnutrition.
We thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to Edesia. You help make our organization stronger and, more importantly, you help raise awareness that malnourished children everywhere are most worthy of our focus and attention.
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