Therapeutic Feeding Center
Run by our Sierra Leone medical clinic staff, the Therapeutic Feeding Center (also referred to as our Malnutrition Clinic) is a place where women from the surrounding villages can seek treatment for their babies and children suffering from malnutrition. Besides providing often life-saving intervention on behalf of the children, the staff also educates mothers on how to properly feed and care for their children. The Therapeutic Feeding Center ministers to children ages 0–5 and their mothers.
Food shortages, or lack of resources to provide adequate nutrition for their families, is obviously a major contributing factor to malnutrition. But cultural myths play a huge role as well. For example, Sierra Leonean villagers believe that if a child eats an egg he or she will turn into a witch. Even though eggs are the most readily available source of protein, they are not given to children. Another belief is that a woman cannot breastfeed her baby after she resumes sexual relations with her husband or else the baby will suffer from mental retardation. This belief causes many women to wean their babies after a few short weeks or months, usually before they are ready to eat food or drink from a cup.
The hierarchy in polygamist families also plays a role in malnutrition. The wives are ranked according to status (first wife, second wife, etc.) and their children are ranked accordingly. When it comes to meal time, the children at the bottom of this ranking eat last and least, oftentimes just rice since most of the nutrition (meat, vegetables, etc.) is served to the men, male children, higher ranking children, etc. Orphans and children taken in from relatives who are unable to care for them rank at the very bottom, and are therefore at the highest risk of malnutrition.
In the Banta chiefdom, an estimated 31–41% of children ages 0–5 are malnourished. Through the Therapeutic Feeding Center, our medical staff is working to reduce that number to 10–15% by the year 2010 (figures pending). Health education initiatives include dispelling cultural myths that adversely effect nutrition, educating mothers as to the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six month’s of a baby’s life, teaching mothers with young babies how to use locally grown ingredients, grounding them into a mixture called Benni Mix (a porridge-type consistency), which is rich in protein and carbohydrates, and most importantly, educating parents to recognize the signs of malnutrition so that early intervention is possible.
Interested in SPONSORING A CHILD? Click here.
Find out more about child sponsorship and how you can sponsor a child and help poor children in need and orphans in Africa, the Dominican Republic or Haiti.
Help children in need. Sponsor a child in Africa, the Dominican Republic, or Haiti TODAY.
Children of the Nations is rated by Charity Navigator as among the top-rated children's charities, Christian charities that help African children, and organizations sponsoring children.
Children of the Nations is a registered 501(c)3 Christian charity whose mission is to help children in Africa and the Caribbean by raising children out of poverty. Find out how to sponsor an orphan or child living in poverty.