20% of children in Haiti, with a reduced body weight. Every fourteenth die before the age of five years. The food crisis affects all aspects of their lives, especially education. There is a constant search for solutions to this terrible tragedy, and there’s even a peanut is transformed into a product that saves from death.
What if you had to go to school in the heat, doing homework almost without light and try to focus, suffering from hunger?
If children are hungry they cannot learn. And if they cannot learn that, grow up, they will not be able to carry out the country change, in which she so needs.
Pritchard and Dana Adams know this firsthand, having lived in Haiti for more than 30 years. In the framework of the Ministry “Rehoboth” they oversee three Christian schools.
“Sometimes the children fainted in the school because of the heat and hunger, says Dana Adams. — We have for many years prayed to be able to feed them. First, we had the feeding program four hundred students in the school, but then school started to grow, and food for children was not enough money. We have long prayed that the Lord would resolve this issue.”
God answered their prayer in service to CBN “a Promise to the orphans”, which has allocated funds for the nutrition program in two schools.
“This year we plan to feed about 1200 students a day. Yet we feed about nine, so there is still about 300,” says Pritchard Adams.
Five days a week students receive nutritious food prepared at the school.
“Children become more attentive and focused. Now quite another matter! There is a Haitian proverb “an Empty sack will not stand,” said Dana Adams.
Dr. Patricia Wolff, founder of “Meds & Food for Kids” (MFK), also saw this need when I started to visit Haiti in 1988.
“Each time, returning, I was caught sick of all those same children who suffered from malnutrition, and some of them even die of hunger,” she says.
After 15 years as a volunteer in medical missions, wolf has decided to expand its scope of activities: “We started in 2003 with a small manual crusher for peanut, which we mixed with powdered milk, sugar and vegetable oil. And we gave the children extra vitamins and minerals — directly into my mouth because we didn’t have vitamins in powder form. We started doing it in the classroom one of the Methodist Church. At first this mixture we produce 100 kilos a month, and treated ten children per month. It seemed to be the miracle children, who looked half-dead already after a week or two came alive, and six to eight weeks recuperating,” says Patricia wolf.
In 2012, MFK has built this new plant, the products of which can feed 80 thousand children. Here raw peanuts are converted into products that can save lives.
Among these products: “Medika Mamba” to combat malnutrition, “plane SAP” for moderately malnourished and as a nutritional Supplement for pregnant women, and “Vita Mamba” — school snack. MFK all products are manufactured here by local workers and, whenever possible, Haitian raw materials.
“In Haiti, it is necessary not only to save people. Yes, we must save those who otherwise might die and lacks nutritious food. But it came to nothing lead, if not to develop the country itself, not contribute to its economic development, and not to involve the parents of these children so that their next child and the one born after him in the family, did not suffer from hunger,” says Patricia wolf.
These products allow desperate parents to fight malnutrition of their children and preserve families.
“Most often the child ends up in an orphanage not because he has no parents, because the parents cannot feed him,” says Patricia wolf.
The main group suffering from malnutrition that Haitian children aged 6 months to 3-4 years. At this age their brain develops. Without proper nutrition they will never be as smart and healthy as it could be.
“We need to work with children because children are the future and they are the most vulnerable. We know how to do it, but this requires additional resources. Requires commitment to these resources to find,” says Patricia wolf.
MFK is already exporting its products to other developing countries. UNICEF and the world food programme — one of its main customers. But even with such growth of the organization Dr. Wolfe said that her work is far from complete.
“The world must not remain as it is now. Here’s what I think: in the world there are people born in North America or Europe who would have won the lottery. But here it’s different. When you see a drowning stranger, to jump in the water and try to save him. Here’s my motivation,” says Patricia wolf.