ICROSS continues to fight drought in Kenya

ICROSS continues to fight drought in Kenya

ICROSS continues fighting poverty and hunger through its network of clinics. While Southern Kenya is not worst hit, a growing number of malnourished children are falling into serious malnutrition. The untold suffering caused by this drought has wiped out most of the domestic livestock. The communities are struggling to Survive. ICROSS Medical teams and health staff are extending the nutritional care to reach more families every week. With your help we can help more families survive the worsening drought.

Dr Michael Meegan was in Longosua today at the heart of Maasailand . Speaking with community leaders in Longosua he renewed ICROSS committment in 2011 to reduce dehydration and improve the nutrition of malnourished children.

There have been 42 droughts in the Horn of Africa since ICROSS started in 1979, affecting an estimated 109 million people; with 47 million people experiencing drought in the region in the last decade alone. The most well-known famine took place in Ethiopia in 1984; some estimates put the death toll as high as one million.


ICROSS Kenya remains committed to LONG TERM service of the tribal pastoral nomads. We are building long term child survival and safe motherhood to reduce suffering and build long range systems for the future.

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While most of the US$2.4 billion required to feed people affected by the food crisis will come from rich countries, local populations and the diaspora are also doing their bit. Just one week after it began, the Kenyans for Kenya initiative has already raised more than $1.3 million from private citizens using mobile cash transfer services and taking donations of as little as $0.10; the first consignment of food was sent from the capital, Nairobi, on 31 July.



Feeding the malnourished - By the time help reaches them, many adults and children require therapeutic feeding to regain their strength and get back to a healthy weight. Some of the products WFP uses to improve the nutritional intake of drought-affected people are:

* Fortified blended foods: Blends of partially pre-cooked and milled cereals, soya, beans, pulses fortified with vitamins and minerals. These are usually mixed with water and cooked as porridge and provide about 380 Kcal per 100g. The most commonly used FBF is corn soya blend.

* Ready-to-use foods: According to WFP, these are better suited to meet the nutritional needs of young and moderately malnourished children than fortified blended foods. Mainly used in emergency operations and designed to be eaten in small quantities as a supplement to the regular diet, ready-to-use foods such as Plumpy’doz contain peanut paste, vegetable fat, skimmed milk powder, whey and sugar; 100g provides more than 500 Kcal.

* High-energy biscuits: These wheat-based biscuits, which provide 450 Kcal per 100g, are fortified with vitamins and minerals and are usually used early on in emergency feeding programme, before cooking facilities are widely available.

* Sprinkles - This is a tasteless powder containing the recommended daily intake of 16 vitamins and minerals for one person; it can be sprinkled on to home-prepared food after cooking.

* Compressed food bars - made from baked wheat flour, vegetable fat, sugar, soya protein concentrate and malt extract, these bars are used in disaster relief operations when local food cannot be distributed or prepared. They can be eaten as a bar straight from the package or crumbled into water and eaten as porridge, and contain 250 Kcal and 8.1g of protein per 56g bar.


Michael Elmore-Meegan MSc Community Health TCD
D Med HC NUI FRAMI
Founder, International Director ICROSS
http://icrossinternational.org/
www.icross-africa.net
http://icrosskenya.org/
http://www.michaelmeegan.net/
http://icrossprojects.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/ICROSSprojects