The past two weeks I have spent weighing and measuring all of the children and going through birth certificates to find their birth dates (a lot of the parents only have a general idea on how old the kids are). I have plotted all of the kids based on WHO (world health organization) standards, so that we could determine the degree of malnourishment in all of the children. We have seven children classified as moderately malnourished and two children classified as severely malnourished.
It is hard for us to imagine what true malnourishment really is. We have more of the opposite problem in the States. Growing up, I never even experienced true hunger let alone malnutrition. Malnutrition causes children’s bodies to not fully develop. Malnutrition causes neurological damage. Malnutrition is responsible for a third of child deaths globally. Malnutrition causes children to die from common ailments like diarrhea. Every 30 seconds a child dies of malnutrition somewhere in the world. Malnutrition breaks my heart.
To be frank, the food we are financially able to provide the children in our program will not reverse malnutrition. To help these nine children, I need your help. In Port-au-Prince, we can buy a food that is designed to reverse the effects of malnutrition. It will also give them all of the vitamins and minerals that they need. To buy this food for all of these children, I need just over $400 total. On a smaller scale, we would also like to buy chickens for some of the families. It will be a program where we supply the chickens, and they are responsible for providing a chicken coop and the food. They will be able to keep some of the eggs for their own families, but they will also be required to bring some of the eggs back to the program. This will allow us to provide something different in all of the children’s diets. Each chicken will cost about $5. Please consider helping us buy this food or a couple chickens.
You’ve read what malnutrition is and how you can help, but what does it really look like? It looks like Benji. Benji is almost three years old and is the height and weight of an average 9 month old. It looks like Negie who has the best smile. It looks like Jamesely who couldn’t wait to eat a bowl of spaghetti.
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| Benji beside a boy who is an average size for their age (both almost 3) |
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| Negie |
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| Jamesley |
I don’t want to take away from the good things that are happening in the nutrition program. All of the children are starting school, which will hopefully break the cycle of malnutrition in their families. All of the children are receiving daily multivitamins with iron. All of the children are receiving medical care that they did not previously have access to. All of the moms are attending a weekly bible study with me. This week we are registering one of the moms back in school because she wants to provide a better future for her two boys. However, there is still more to do. A quote on the WHO website stuck with me. It says, “We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘tomorrow’. His name is ‘Today’.”
We cannot show these children the love of Jesus without also meeting their physical needs. They need strength to grow and develop now. Waiting will be detrimental. Will you help save these children’s lives?
If you are interested in donating money, you can give through this link http://nwhcm.org/give/travel-payment (and get a tax donation!). Please put "Tore Karenbauer Nutrition Food" in the comments section. For more information, please contact me at tore.karenbauer@nwhcm.org.
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