Rowena is a 3-year-old living with her parents and siblings in a small wooden house in the Philippines without electricity. Her father works as a construction worker earning only seasonal income thus struggles to provide for the family. Rowena was found to be moderately malnourished by our medical partner International Care Ministries (ICM) health trainer. She was enrolled on Oct 19 into Home-Based Feeding program to combat childhood malnutrition. She will soon be able to play in full strength with her friends.
One out of every five children under the age of 5-years in ICM communities 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 that Rowena will soon recover from malnutrition and be able to finish her studies when she grows up,” said Rowena’s mother.