“Can’t Cry Hard Enough”

The United Nation World Food Program report states that about 53% of Yemeni children (24,000) under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition and our village of Hais cannot escape this harsh reality. It is almost a decade now that we have served the Hais community and with those years we have seen that indeed malnutrition is a serious problem. It also contributes to the continuous occurrence of disability, along with other factors such as road/traffic accidents, poor medical practices, hereditary issues, iodine and Vitamin A deficiency, infectious diseases and non infectious diseases; congenital diseases and others.

Hunger and malnutrition, as well as disability and poverty are inextricably linked. Fifty percent of disability is preventable and 20% of impairments are caused by malnutrition. The Hais Government Hospital documented 275 case of malnourished children in Hais City and the causes are deeply rooted. Even cases of mothers and their unborn foetus are malnourished due to cultural problems. Chewing of “Kat” continues to be a problem. It is very common in our village of Hais that men, women and even children chew Kat, a leaf from the Catha Edulis tree with an amphetamine effect that is followed by a quiet mood. Kat severely reduces the appetite of women and leaves pregnant mothers without food for considerable times, causing malnutrition for both mother and unborn infant. Chronic shortfalls in access to foods are also a serious issue that leads many rural Yemeni to skip their meals and other vitals needs such health and education. The women seem to use the chewing of Kat as a coping mechanism and this contributes to the vicious cycle of poverty.

Our ADRA team in Hais initiates supplemental feeding activity to address malnutrition and at the same time to reduce disability prevalence in Hais. In coordination with the Hais Government Hospital we came up with a priority list of beneficiaries. With the use of improvise materials we measure the height and weight of our beneficiaries. As you can see, a boy can’t cry hard enough for some reasons, maybe he starving, ill or afraid of our weigh scale. We also measure height using the tape measure from our sewing class and foot rule from our weaving class. Our CBR worker has prepared Improvised Gerber baby food which we called “Tagdiah”. We combine wheat, rice, corn, sugar, (Habat Alsouda and Adas local Yemeni seeds) grind it together, dry, then boil and it turns out to be delicious and the best baby food I have tried. It takes two days to prepare the mixture and the feeding day falls every Wednesday. Beneficiaries usually have two packs of ready mixture to take home for consumption.