The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday it has fed 2.9 million people in the Philippines as part of the Typhoon Haiyan emergency operation. WFP has dispatched a total of 30,716 metric tons of food including rice and high-energy biscuits to feed the hungry following the devastating storm last November.
Read the full article at Examiner.com
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UNICEF said today it’s treating cases of severe malnutrition in the conflict-devastated Central African Republic. Mobile malnutrition units are also being used to increase the capacity to identify and treat cases in small children.
Severe malnutrition can cause lasting physical and mental damage in small children.With food supplies severely disrupted in the country, the threat of malnutrition is widespread.
Read the full article at Examiner.com
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Imagine, for a moment, losing your home and having to flee to another state or country. When natural disasters or war strike, these worst fears become reality.
As this holiday season approaches, there are millions of people in the Philippines and the Middle East who just want the basics of food, water and shelter.
Last week heavy fighting in Syria sent at least 8,000 people running for their lives into neighboring Lebanon.
“The majority of them are women and children and some of them reported shelling and clashes along displacement routes on the way to Arsal,” UN World Food Programme spokesperson Laure Chadraoui told me.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is bringing them aid packages. Some of these refugees had already been displaced once within Syria before now finally being forced out of their home country.
Once in Lebanon, Syrian refugees are not completely safe. Cold and hunger threaten them. The UN Refugee Agency says many “live in poor accommodation in informal settlements, unfinished buildings, garages, worksites and warehouses that are not properly insulated against the cold climate.”
Francine Uenuma of Save the Children, says, “when I was in Lebanon last February, when it was extremely cold, and many of the kids were outside in sandals. Many also had coughs — the sub-zero temperatures mean many face chest infections, not to mention other health problems like hypothermia and frostbite.”
Syrians have also fled to Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey. Throughout the Middle East there are over two million Syrian refugees. Aid groups and host governments are facing a huge task to help these war victims, many who have lost everything.
In Iraq, WFP is providing Plumpy’Doz to small Syrian children who are at risk of severe malnutrition. This special peanut paste can save their lives. The WFP is also providing extra food to children at schools to bolster class attendance and performance.
While this massive relief operation is ongoing in the Middle East, a world away is an emergency in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan. More than 11 million Filipinos were impacted by the high winds, flooding and destruction caused by the storm.
The World Food Programme, UNICEF and other aid groups are rushing to bring them food, water, and medicine. The storm victims need shelter quickly. More rain and storms may be on the way. Aid is needed fast to save lives and to prevent the situation from getting worse.
Consider this: If children, especially, do not get enough nutrients it can cause lasting physical and mental damage. The lack of food or clean water can cause the spread of disease.
As the holidays come before us there is a great tradition called Black Friday, which marks the start of the holiday shopping season. Stores and individuals could donate at least a portion of their sales or purchasing funds toward relief of the suffering people in the Philippines and the Middle East.
Here are lists of some aid agencies with relief funds for the Philippines and for Syria. Some individuals have donated already. It is deeply appreciated too as Jen Hardy of Catholic Relief Services tells us from the Philippines.
Originally published at The Huffington Post.
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This Halloween please remember the world’s hungry (photo courtesy USA.gov)
There is more to Halloween than you might think. Yes, it’s about monsters and ghouls, and the fear of the unseen. Do not let Halloween ‘trick” you though. Halloween is also the season of charity and feeding the hungry.
Where I live in Cincinnati is an old ghost legend at a cemetery near the Ohio River. A mysterious light would shine from this graveyard at night along with the eerie tune of a fiddler. No one dared to check it out.
A professor from the nearby College of Mount St. Joseph, Cecil Hale, did some “digging” and found out this “ghost” first appeared at the time of the Underground Railroad. This was the secret network which guided slaves to freedom in the north before the Civil War.
The strange light was likely a signal meant to guide slaves across the Ohio River. The creation of a ghost was meant to keep people away from the cemetery. This scary story was actually a cover for the most noble act of charity, giving the oppressed a light to freedom. This meant sending them to their next safe house on the Underground Railroad. The travelers on this Railroad were hungry and these stops along the route gave them food and renewed their strength to keep going.
Today, the ghosts and creatures of Halloween are huge business, with billions spent yearly on candy and costumes. The amount spent each year on Halloween could finance hunger relief missions in many countries around the world.
Since 1950, Halloween has added an extra surprise for those receiving trick or treaters. Many thousands of children have appeared at the door with a Halloween bag, not just for candy, but one to collect change for UNICEF. It all started when the Reverend Clyde Allison and his wife Mary Emma had an idea to turn Halloween into a night of charity.
Since that time more than 170 million dollars has been raised for UNICEF and its operations providing food, medicine and education to children in impoverished countries. Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is a Halloween tradition that saves lives.
Think about this. On Halloween night you could collect donations to feed starving children in Syria, South Sudan, Mali, Afghanistan, Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries suffering from war.
Small children die every day because they cannot get the nutrition they need. UNICEF uses a miracle food called Plumpy’Nut to save their lives, but only if they have enough supply. Funding is often low for humanitarian aid missions because it’s not made a high enough priority.
That is where individuals can take the lead and the responsibility. There is even now chocolate and vanilla flavored bars you can purchase that lead to donations for Plumpy’Nut. The company This Bar Saves Lives makes a donation for each bar sold so Save the Children can distribute more Plumpy’Nut.
So on this Halloween night, you can make a change. You can experience the other side of Halloween, the one of charity. The College of Mount St. Joseph is hosting trick or treat events as well. Yes, there will be ghost stories, but also a canned good collection for the local Delhi Food Pantry. The school’s Campus Ministry, Student Nurses Association and the Activities Board are all pitching in to collect the donations.
It turns out this Halloween food drive is extra timely as food stamps are being reduced in the United States. The strain on food pantries is going to be enormous. The coming scare for America is going to be a further escalation of hunger in an already suffering economy.
Things are not always what they appear to be. Sometimes though you decide what something is to be. Your actions make the difference. Your ideas can give power to charity. On Halloween you can add an extra surprise to this “fright night,” making it a special event that helps the world.
Originally published at the Huffington Post.
Filed under global hunger
Drought and conflict have caused massive displacement in Mali as families search for pasture. (photo courtesy WFP/ Daouda Guirou)
UNICEF says it’s only received 28 percent of its 58 million dollar emergency appeal to help conflict-torn Mali. The charity is providing nutrition, water, vaccinations and medicine to children suffering from the conflict and poverty.
A coup followed by a rebellion in Northern Mali has caused hunger and displacement for many thousands of families. Drought has also struck throughout Mali intensifying hunger and poverty.
UNICEF states, “Across the northern part of Mali, the global malnutrition rate is among the highest in the country. Schools have been closed for much of the year. Tens of thousands of families have been uprooted from their homes and exposed to violence and distress. Cholera has surfaced along the Niger River. Community coping mechanisms are being stretched to the extreme and risk failure, with negative consequences for children and women.”
The chaos has also placed children at risk of recruitment into rebel forces. UNICEF says it “calls on all parties to the conflict, leaders and community members to ensure that children are protected from the harmful impact of armed conflict and do not participate in hostilities.”
Families in Mali normally rely on stocks of food to help them through the summer lean season between harvests. These stocks would come from previous harvests. The drought though has meant far less food reserves to draw upon. Some reports show that families are resorting to eating cooked leaves. When drought hits families who are already living in poverty the impact is devastating.
Save the Children is working to rescue the most vulnerable in this hunger crisis. The charity is facing low funding having not achieved 50 percent of the fundraising goal for Mali.
Meanwhile the peak of the “lean season” is here with farmers and their families struggling to get food. Katie Seaborne, a Save the Children officer in Mali says, “I met with a woman called Mamou Traore in Diema of Kayes region in Southern Mali just on Thursday who explained how her husband’s crops lasted just one month. They have been trying to eke out a living ever since. Her four month old baby girl, Aissaita is now malnourished.”
Save the Children is supporting health centres which are treating these malnutrition cases including Aissaita. Without funding it will be difficult for Save the Children to carry on this work.
To donate to Save the Children visit their West Africa Hunger Crisis Fund.
For more information on UNICEF in Mali visit their web site.
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If enough packets of supplementary plumpy are brought to Yemen it can allievate much of the child malnutrition ongoing there. The plumpy is easy to store since it requires no refrigeration and packets are ready to eat. (photo courtesy of Plumpyfield)
UNICEF Yemen is reporting stunting rates among children at 71.4 percent in the Rayma governorate of central Yemen. Children who are stunted by lack of nutrition fail to reach expected height and weight for their age.
Another UNICEF survey revealed global acute malnutrition rates among children in the Lahj governorate of southern Yemen at 23 percent. Children who suffer this malnutrition have lasting physical and mental damage unless they are treated.
Child malnutrition is severe throughout Yemen. UNICEF says, “967,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition. In certain areas of the country, the acute malnutrition rate exceeds 30 per cent, twice the emergency threshold.” Until this crisis is alleviated Yemen will not be able to gain stability for its future. The question is, what action can be taken?
A full supply of supplementary plumpy (plumpy’sup) food for all needy children in Yemen would provide the nation with a break from the malnutrition storm. Supplementary plumpy, and plumpy’doz, are peanut pastes designed to keep children from falling into the most severe levels of malnutrition. When children reach the most desperate stage of malnutrition they are generally fed life-saving plumpy’nut. Yemen needs a supply of plumpy’nut too to treat the most severe malnutrition cases.
But if the rest of the child population at risk of malnutrition can be reached with supplementary plumpy you can prevent this last resort.
Dr. Wisam Al-timimi of UNICEF Yemen says, “Supplementary plumpy is the 1st stage to treat the moderate cases of acute malnutrition (MAM).” UNICEF is teaming with the UN World Food Programme to increase coverage of supplementary plumpy and plumpy’doz for children under two years of age.
Navyn Salem of Edesia, which produces Plumpy’Nut and Plumpy’Sup, says it’s a “good strategy” to treat children ahead of time with Plumpy’Sup to prevent their dangerous descent into severe malnutrition. Salem says it “costs less and it is of course better for the children to be reached sooner than later.”
Funding, though, will be an obstacle, as donations are needed so UNICEF, WFP, and other aid agencies can get the necessary supplies. These agencies rely completely on voluntary donations which are often hard to get even though food aid is relatively inexpensive.
Both WFP and UNICEF are limited in plumpy supply due to funding constraints. As of last month UNICEF Yemen only had 30 percent of the funding it needed for a $24 million program to fight child malnutrition. With extra funding they would increase the defenses against child malnutrition.
Support from governments and the public would go a long way toward stabilizing the country and preventing a generation of children from being damaged from malnutrition in the first thousand days of life.
UNICEF Yemen has a relief fund that the public can use to contribute funds to the relief effort. The UNICEF programs needs more support. Susannah Masur of UNICEF USA says “it’s been very difficult to raise money for the nutrition crisis in Yemen.”
The public can also contact the UN World Food Programme and ask about direct donation to their operation in Yemen. Governments can work with UNICEF and WFP and provide donations to make sure they have the resources on the ground to help all the children in Yemen.
Article first published as Special Food Can Save Malnourished Children in Yemen on Blogcritics.
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Winston Churchill once said, “The further backward you look, the further forward you can see.” As President Obama is set to make a speech about today’s global hunger crisis, it helps to look back on this day in history.
On May 17, 1946 Herbert Hoover addressed the nation as famine threatened to strike the countries devastated by World War II. Hoover had been appointed as a “food ambassador” by Harry Truman. Hoover set out to coordinate the global response and millions of lives were saved by this effort. As Hoover put it, the world had to come together to master the famine.
Herbert Hoover (far right) served as food ambassador under President Truman (center). Hoover, Truman and General Dwight Eisenhower (far left) made multiple speeches about fighting hunger after World War II in order to win the peace. (Truman Library photo)
The citizens of America responded, sending CARE packages and even having trains cross the country collecting food for the hungry. The recovery program for Europe after the war, known as the Marshall Plan, was built on a foundation of food and nutrition.
We face a new hunger crisis today, as conflict in Sudan, East Africa, the Sahel region of Africa, Yemen, and Afghanistan has escalated the ranks of the hungry. Also, drought has descended in many of these areas which has ruined food production. Children are dying from malnutrition. Right now aid agencies lack the funding to keep up with the crisis.
The UN World Food Programme said earlier this month that 364 million dollars is needed right away to fight hunger in the Sahel. UNICEF Yemen is only 32 percent funded for this year for its relief work. The World Food Programme in South Sudan is short $132 million dollars for relief work.
Peace in these countries depends on whether there is enough food supply and nutrition, especially for the smallest children. If enough funding is provided, millions of children in these countries could be spared death or damaging malnutrition.
Peace is advanced if we save the children. This we know. Still, history gives hope that the world can respond to the threat of famine today. On this day in history the Greatest Generation was focused on defeating the last enemy of World War II: Hunger.
Listen to Herbert Hoover address the nation on May 17,1946 about the famine after World War II.
Read more about President Obama’s speech on global hunger at the Global Agriculture and Food Security Symposium on May 18th.
Article first published as This Day in History in the Fight Against Global Hunger on Blogcritics.
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In a letter to the New York Times last February, I wrote about an emergency safety net plan to feed millions of hungry Yemenis suffering from high food prices.
Since that time, child malnutrition in some parts of Yemen has increased so much as to rival famine-ravaged Somalia.
Maria Calivis, UNICEF’s regional director, says, “This year alone, half a million children in Yemen are likely to die from malnutrition or to suffer lifelong physical and cognitive consequences resulting from malnutrition if we don’t take action. Malnutrition is preventable. And, therefore, inaction is unconscionable.”
Calivis adds, “Conflict, poverty and drought, compounded by the unrest of the previous year, the high food and fuel prices, and the breakdown of social services, are putting children’s health at great risks and threatening their very survival.”
Neither UNICEF nor the UN World Food Programme (WFP) received enough funding during 2011 to carry out their full hunger relief missions in Yemen.
These UN agencies rely on voluntary donations from the international community. If donors do not contribute, then hunger relief missions have to be scaled back or in some cases halted.
So what can someone do? Take action! UNICEF has a relief fund for Yemen. The World Food Program USA is also hosting a Yemen fund. You can even sign a petition to help WFP fight hunger in Yemen.
Or you can take in a “silent guest.” Starting in the holidays of 1947, the United States helped starving countries with a “silent guest” program. At mealtime, people were asked to imagine a silent guest at their table. Then they could mail the cost for feeding that silent guest to a committee in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This donation would buy a CARE package which was sent to hungry people in war-devastated Europe.
Today, maybe at your next meal, you could take in an infant child in Yemen who needs plumpy’nut to prevent potentially deadly malnutrition. You could send that donation to UNICEF which provides the plumpy so it can help treat all the cases of child malnutrition in the country.
Some of the countries who benefited from silent guest donations back in 1947 were Italy, Austria, France, and Greece. At that time Greece was recovering from a famine and facing a civil war.
Another country helped by the silent guest program was Germany. It is Germany that today has taken the lead in helping fight hunger in Yemen with a recent donation of $31 million to the WFP mission.
WFP will need over $200 million to feed millions of Yemenis during 2012. The rest of the international community should follow Germany’s lead.
The donation from Germany will help the emergency safety net plan which includes rations for 1.8 million Yemenis and also plumpy for infants. A school feeding program which has faced severe cuts over the last couple of years is getting a restart too.
The WFP Food for Education plan, which distributed take-home rations to schoolchildren, was suspended in 2010 and did not resume until May of 2011. Then it was a limited distribution, not even close to the previous levels of about 115,000 students. These rations benefited the children and their families. It’s food for the body and the mind as it keeps children in school and learning reading, math, science, and writing.
As significant as Germany’s recent donation is, it will be able to help revive Food for Education only to almost half of what it once reached in terms of students.
Lubna Alaman, director of WFP Yemen, says “The Food for Girls’ Education [program] is targeting only 53,000 girls and their families, and the food will be distributed for three school terms in 2012.”
So there is a long way to go to get all these hunger relief plans fully active again.
The choice with Yemen is simple. Invest now and avert an epic disaster like Somalia faced. We can save a generation of children in Yemen from the malnutrition that damages or even kills them in the first years of life.
Or drift along, pretending that Yemen will somehow turn out OK with an average response to humanitarian needs. It won’t, because no nation can have peace, political stability, and development on empty stomachs and malnourished bodies and minds.
Article first published as How a Silent Guest Can Help Save Hungry Yemen on Blogcritics.
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A mother attends to her severely malnourished child at an inpatient feeding centre in Mao, Chad. Credit: UNICEF Chad/2011/ Esteve
In the Sahel region of Africa millions of people are caught in a severe hunger crisis. Niger, Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali are primarily the countries affected right now.
Drought has reduced food production, and high prices reign over the existing food supply. For families living in poverty, food is out of reach. UNICEF says more than a million children under five years of age will need to be treated for severe malnutrition in the region.
If the international community does not act now, the situation will get much worse. Action has to be taken well before the lean season between harvests, which could start as early as February or March. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says, “food security problems in the lean season lead to significant peaks in acute malnutrition and mortality, taking it beyond critical levels.”
It can take months for a donation to translate into food on the ground. So donors need to come forward quickly to help avert a disaster in the Sahel.
Navyn Salem of Edesia, whose organization produces plumpy’nut food aid, points out that if donors wait until the ultimate disaster strikes, it leads to very expensive airlifts of emergency food aid. That is money that could have been used to purchase more food and shipped at lower cost months earlier.
Right now WFP is facing a tough time funding its relief operations as hunger is on the rise in many parts of the globe. In Niger, WFP had to increase its funding requirements to feed over 3 million people, one million higher than previous estimates. So far, less than half of the required funding has been received to provide the food aid.
Denise Brown, WFP country director, warns “Unusually high food prices are affecting needy people who are facing growing difficulties as they struggle to feed themselves and their children. I am deeply worried about the food situation deteriorating in the coming months and we cannot sit back and wait for the worst to come.”
The US Food for Peace program, started by Dwight Eisenhower, has been able to send some funds for Niger relief. However, the US Congress has been threatening to reduce future funding for Food for Peace despite the massive global hunger crisis now unfolding.
In Chad, cereal production in 2011 decreased 50 percent compared to 2010, according to the Food and Agriculture organization. Who becomes the most vulnerable when such a food crisis hits? It’s the smallest children under five years of age.
A WFP report says, levels of acute malnutrition were at a “critical” level in 6 out of 11 regions surveyed in Chad. Other areas were categorized as having “Serious” levels of malnutrition. The smallest infants in this danger zone run the risk of lifetime physical and mental damage unless food aid can reach them in time.
UNICEF says, “What is going to be required to save lives is the sweet, peanut-based therapeutic food known as ‘Plumpy Nut’, enough nutrition professionals in the field to work the feeding centres, and a string of other interventions that bring more food into communities.”
The Sahel region is in need though of more than emergency food aid. There has to be a way to build up the resilience of the region to future droughts, and gradually reduce the need for outside assistance. When the current crisis stabilizes, investments in the small farmer will need to move forward. Only this food security investment can prevent another hunger crisis of this magnitude.
Article first published as Sahel Food Crisis: Race Against Time to Save Lives on Blogcritics.
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UNICEF Nutrition Officer Dr. Rajia Sharhan holds a young child at a therapeutic feeding centre in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital. (UNICEF Yemen/2011/Halldorsson)
In my interview with Geert Cappelaere of UNICEF, we see the widescale crisis of child health and malnutrition in Yemen. Dr. Rajia Sharhan witnesses this crisis unfold daily as a nutrition specialist for UNICEF Yemen.
Dr. Sharhan works at a health clinic and also trains other medical care workers throughout the country. She recently took time to answer some questions about her work at the clinic. Her insight gives us at least some idea of the challenges facing Yemeni families, and also some solutions.
How far do people travel to the clinic?
It depends on the district distance from their village to the health center. Sometimes they need two hours by car to reach it.
Is accessibility a problem for families trying to get medical care?
Yes it is, especially in the last few months when fuel increased in price so families’ priority was food not health.
What if a medical condition is not able to be treated at your clinic?
The child has to be referred to the therapeutic feeding center and gets medical attention in the same hospital.
Do you see a lot of children who are underweight for their age?
Yes, a lot, around 50%.
What is the most common ailment you see in children at the clinic? Is it something that is preventable?
Many suffer from diarrhoea. It’s preventable by ensuring that the water given to the child is clean and hygiene is promoted.
How much does literacy play a role in how parents care for their children?
It plays a role, as many illiterate mothers don’t know the proper feeding practices and importance of breast feeding and proper complementary feeding. Maybe we use the media (radio) because all mothers everywhere listen to it while cooking, and this may help in increasing the awareness.
Can you describe the use in Yemen of plumpy’nut (the special peanut paste that rescues children from malnutrition).
The volunteers at the village level in Abbs go to identify children with malnutrition. During the regular biweekly work of a volunteer in a village, using Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC), when a child is identified with a MUAC of 11 cm, the volunteer gives a referral card and advises the mother or the caretaker to immediately refer that child the nearest Outpatient Therapeutic Care (OTP) program, which in Abbs is the district rural health center.
The mother has to go there by car so they rent one. The mother and child arrive at the waiting area of the health clinic and give the referral card. Then the child is weighed and the height is measured and if the Z score is -3 standard deviations according to the table chart for malnutrition, the child is admitted to the OTP after an appetite test for plumpy’nut is done to make sure there are no complications (fever, loss of appetite, or any disease causing deterioration of the consciousness of the child).
If the child passes the appetite test then a further clinical checkup is done and the child is given a one-week ration of plumpy’nut which is around 21-28 sachets per week (3 to 4 sachets per day), according to the child’s weight and height. The child then returns to the village but has to go the health center every week to get weighed and to be given the ration of plumpy’nut. Because of the constraints of transportation sometimes the child is given a two-week ration. The volunteers continue their screening and follow up with the children enrolled in the program.
The child is cured after eight weeks.
You can donate to help Yemen at UNICEF USA.
Article first published as Interview: Rajia Sharhan of UNICEF Yemen on Blogcritics.
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Author William Lambers 