Impacts on Early Development
Abuk Wal, a 29 year old mother of 7 has spent the last week in the nutrition stabilization center looking after her 3 year old son that is severely malnourished boy Madouk Deng. Her son has been admitted six times with symptoms of (diarrhea, vomiting and sickness) since he has been 7 months old (Gridneff, L. (2013).
Despite the spread of famine being reversed in South Sudan, almost 276,000 children are severely malnourished and in need of immediate life-saving aid. The children are even more vulnerable to the threat of air borne diseases such as measles (Gridneff, L. (2013).
In result of the famine it caused two countries to move 1.83 million people across the borders (Gridneff, L. (2013). More than 1,000 children are now fleeing South Sudan everyday (Gridneff, L. (2013).
Since January this year, UNICEF and partners have treated more than 56,000 children aged 6 to 59 months for severe acute malnutrition in South Sudan, and aim to treat more than 200,000 severely malnourished children by the end of the year (Gridneff, L. (2013). The challenges these children face educationally is very much so impacted by the lack of nutrition that they are receiving if a child is sick or hungry it will be very hard to focus and attend school. Emotionally the children are lacking the fundamentals of who they are and how they should feel. With the combine work of UNICEF and others they are able to provide these children with some hope.
References
Gridneff, I. (2017). Fighting famine in Aweil South Sudan, as acute malnutrition rates continues to rise. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/
Takeisha,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. One thing that really bothers me (among many) is how people are still plagued from famine, malnutrition, and the lack of basic necessities when there are so much in other areas, that things like food is destroyed and thrown in the trash while medicines that can save millions of lives are overpriced or kept out of reach. The work that UNICEF does is amazing and from this week, it will definitely be an organization that I will continue to follow and to support.
Hi Takeisha, thank you so much for sharing this heartbreaking and informative post. It was very challenging to read about the poor health care the children and family were receiving in Awei South
ReplyDeleteSudan. One fact that surprised me was that mothers had to walk for days with their sick babies just to receive the proper care. I cannot imagine the fear both the mothers and children were feeling in their journey to receive medical help. I am very happy to see UNICEF is helping with the malnutrition, I hope they also began building and opening up more local hospitals and doctor offices to cut back on the hike to receive medical treatment.
Hello Takeisha what a heart wrenching story. I agree with Beatriz's comment about how much food we waste and how these countries struggle to feed their families. These children are born into a never ending cycle of poverty. Thanks to UNICEF there is always hope.
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