Eighteen-year-old mother Amina`s identical twin girls are just nine months old, but they’re not doing well. “They are not developing, they are malnourished,” says the first-time mum of Radia and Fatia, who are undergoing acute malnutrition therapy at a ChildFund-supported health centre in the Fentale district of Ethiopia“ a country in the grip of its worst drought in decades.
“There`s no water and there`s a shortage of foods,” says Amina, who gave birth at seven months pregnant. Her twins have never seen rain: “Now they`re nine months old and they`re not growing because of the problems they have.”
In addition to providing support to the health centre, ChildFund also provides Famix“ a fortified soya flour, rich in much-needed protein“ to help mothers like Amina, whose children are admitted to the Severe Acute Malnutrition inpatient therapy ward, in their ability to breastfeed. f100, a nutrient-rich therapeutic formula, is also given to children in the ward four times a day.
Sada is one of the clinical nurses caring for the twins at the centre, which identifies five or six new cases of malnutrition each day. “Their weight was below normal for their age, they cried all night, they had no appetite. They had lesions on their skin,” says Sada, who feeds and provides medicine to patients, as well as advice to parents on how to care for them.
On 13 March 2015, Tropical Cyclone Pam raged through the Southern Pacific Ocean and became one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Vanuatu. With wind gusts reaching 320 km/h, more than 20 people were killed, tens of thousands were left homeless, schools were destroyed and family livelihoods wiped out.
One year on, and most of the infrastructure has been repaired or rebuilt in the Pacific Island nation, thanks in part to the emergency assistance provided to communities by ChildFund Australia and our partner on the ground, Live & Learn Vanuatu. Yet the scars of Pam remain.
“Although Ni-Vanuatu people have demonstrated great resilience, there are still several issues to be addressed,” says Anze Simnovec, project coordinator for ChildFund’s partnership project in Vanuatu. “Cyclone Pam has negatively impacted almost every aspect of people`s lives,” he explains. “People were not just struggling with the rebuilding of their homes, food and water shortages, but also with the psychological scars that the cyclone has left.”
“Moreover, because people spent most of their little savings on the rebuilding of their homes, they were struggling with other things such as paying for school fees, kindergarten fees and health services.”
Enabling children to resume their education was a priority of ChildFund`s response effort in Vanuatu. To date, ChildFund has supported the reconstruction of two kindergartens in the informal settlement areas outside the capital Port Vila, giving 70 pre-school children the chance to return to school. Constructed to be cyclone-proof and with wheelchair-friendly ramps, these buildings can now be used as emergency shelters for the local community during cyclone season, which typically occurs from November to April.
