A song to welcome refugees

Children under five are screened for malnutrition. Those suffering from malnutrition, but not affected by other diseases such as malaria or diarrhea, are taken in charge through the out-patient therapeutic program. They can be treated at home: after the medical team has completed the tests and given nutritional and care advices to the caregiver, they return home with a quantity of ready-to-use therapeutic food for one week. The thick paste contains all nutritional inputs that they need to recover. “They have to come back in a week’s time for the health workers to check on the child’s health, explains Lemma, the Nutrition program manager for Action Against Hunger, we will see if the treatment works and whether the child is gaining weight. Otherwise, we will try to understand why the child does not react to the treatment. Sometimes, this leads us to visit the family. Often, the mothers understand how it works but the family is willing to share the treatment with other children in the household. In these cases, we explain to the family why it is important for the sick child to receive all the treatment. We indicate how they can find other sources of food and we can find other malnourished children that we send to our center.”

The outpatient therapeutic program is designed for malnourished children who can be treated at home. Children with medical complications such as diarrhea and malaria go to the stabilization centre, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.