11-month-old Prescilla lives with her grandmother in a house made of bamboo and concrete without proper water supply. Her mother works as a helper in a store and struggles to provide for Prescilla. As a result, she is now suffering from moderate malnutrition, weighing less than kids her age.
One out of every five children under the age of 5 in the communities that our medical partner International Care Ministries (ICM) is either severely or moderately acutely malnourished. Worldwide, poor nutrition is associated with nearly half of all deaths in young children. In remote communities and urban slums of the Philippines, the lack of clean water and unclean environments add risk to potentially fatal childhood diseases.
ICM’s Home-Based Feeding program provides nutrient enriched food packs to ensure malnourished children get the additional food to regain normal weight, and achieve optimum physical and mental development. After identifying a child being malnourished, staff and community volunteers make weekly visits to monitor this child’s progress. To help sustain the health of the child, ICM’s professional staff educate the mother, guardian or other family members about proper nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and organic vegetable gardening.
“I hope she will recover from malnutrition and become healthy,” said Prescilla’s mother.
