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

Keeping in touch with ICROSS Programmes

As we extend our rural health programmes and activities we are also improving ways of sharing our work with friends and donors.
Our International web site is www.icrossinternational.org

We are replacing www.icrosskenya.org with a new site www.icross-africa.net
We are on facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67269670621 and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Icross/214121631935136

and will shortly launch a new discussion forum and help line in Kenya. you can follow us on twitter at IcrossAfrica


For more about ICROSS and our work in Africa please check out our sites and follow our work



ICROSS, which stands for "the International Community for the Relief of Suffering and Starvation" is a Kenyan-based non-governmental organization founded by Michael Meegan, Joseph Barnes and Thomas O'Riordan which specialises in long term primary health, community health care and public health programmes. The organisation's headquarters are based in Ngong, Rift Valley, Kenya. ICROSS www.icrossinternational.org . ICROSS has a long established research programme with a number of different patrners and research collaborators.
[edit] Activities

ICROSS www.icrosskenya.org works as a Kenyan-based development NGO, with a focus in the field of health,[1][2] with key international lectures [3] including the RedR Future shocks lecture,.[4] ICROSS is responsible for a large terminal care programme and a series of public health programmes. One of ICROSS's key research streams has been investigating means of solar disinfection (SODIS) of contaminated drinking water, and has helped conduct a number of control trials of SODIS.[5] Engaged in multi country collaborative programmes www.rcsi.ie/hwts09 ICROSS stresses traditional tribal values, building development programmes through the exisyting decision systems and creating locally driven agendas.

International profile ICROSS campaigns have included Africa awakes which tries to change the stereotypes and negative perceptions of Africa www.africa-awakes.com These exhibitions have received wide media coverage in Italy and France. ICROSS public health work has been cited Internationally , medical work has appeared in key scienticif journals since 1981. Meegan who received many international awards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Elmore-Meegan was featured in BBC's Hardtalk current affair's programme for his work for ICROSS[6] while in 2006 the organisation was the subject of an award winning documentary by Irish Television.[7] ICROSS and its Founders have received widespread recognition for their work, especially in long term public health and creating lasting community development programmes. ICROSS spcialises in long term pastoralist health programmes, the most recent example of which was opened in December 2010 at Ilkilorit, Maasai land in Kenya. They have been covered extensively in the media, most recently for SODIS and for Africa awakes campaigns fighting racism, prejudice and stereotypes. In 2003 the founder received International person of the year in Ireland and in 2006 was the second person ever to receive a D Med Honoris Causa for his work in International health.www.nui.ie/college/docs/citations/2006/meegan.pdf

ICROSS work is widely cited ( see google scholar ) and the administration is entirely Africanied since August 2000.

Media news items include research http://www.emwis.net/initiatives/fol060732/proj634131 http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/letter-2003-10-16.html The International NGO which has multi lateral and bi lateral donors. Since 2003 the expansion of ICROSS International has seen the creation of an International Advisory board in 2009 chaired by Dr Davida de La Harpe. In October 2009 ICROSS launched www.icrossinternational.org and www.icrosskenya.org

Michael Meegan has also written numerous books on his work with ICROSS including 'All Will Be Well'(the successor to 'All Shall Be Well'), 'Surprised by Joy' and 'Changing the World 2008 A new series of books is being published by eye books www.eye-books.con

In January 2010 ICROSS Kenya extended its Rural health programmes. In March ICROSS Kenya began legal action in Ireland to try and establlish where funds raised for Kenyan projects had gone. The co founder of ICROSS Dr Joe Barnes installed a new Board of Directors in ICROSS Ireland july 2010 and funding to ICROSS Kenya programmes resumed. This funding was raised by the Founders