Alexia is a 4-year-old girl from the Philippines. She lives with her parents and three siblings in a house made of bamboo. The family’s receives water from the water pump and shares electricity with their neighbor. Alexia loves to play “balay-balay”.
One out of every five children under the age of 5-years in the communities served by 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 want my child to reach her target weight and hope she will be a successful teacher someday,” says Alexia’s mother
