Thursday, March 31, 2011
Mysore Mallige Prithviraj Dead
caught between poverty and malnutrition
By Lissette Garcia, La Prensa, Honduras.
Junior smiling and oblivious to what was happening around, babbling happily. You are about to meet his three years and still not walking. Crawls with problems in the dirt floor of a house in the middle of the mountain in the village of San Antonio in Erandique, Lempira.
Your skin is dry from the cold and his large stomach. At first glance it seems that your height is the same as normal weight, but the reality is that the size of a small one and your stomach is inflamed. The color of his skin is yellow this indicates that a disease affects him: malnutrition.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture, FAO estimates that the population suffering from malnutrition in Latin America has now reached 53 million people and Junior is part of that list along with thousands of children living in precarious conditions in western Honduras.
Malnutrition affects the child population as also victims of poverty, misery and hunger. In the municipalities of Lempira and La Paz Intibucá the problem of malnutrition is evident, although the villagers have learned to live with them.
household menu is rice, tortillas and beans. But thanks to the advice of NGOs in many villages have learned to grow vegetables and vegetable consumption. Another
support families who have school meals is the root of the problem but we live in the country by the magisterial crisis, schools are closed. Only schools PROHECO (Community Education Project) are open.
children are not having access to that glass of milk as part of the diet of school for the educational crisis facing the country. Mal
chronic
According World Food Programme, WFP, chronic malnutrition attacks by 27% of children in Honduras. About 800 000 infants may suffer malnutrition whereas the child population 0-18 years beyond three million people, according to numbers from the National Statistics Institute, INE.
concerned about the figures because poverty remains the main host of Honduran households because seven of every 10 people live in poverty. The situation is alarming.
The World Food Programme, WFP, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC prepared a document entitled "The cost of hunger."
Honduras is one of the countries with the highest prevalence of malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean and that 1 in 6 children under five suffer from this evil. In
According to estimates from 2001, 162.000 children under five moderately and severely malnourished and more than 200 000 are chronically malnourished.
For newborns, nearly 9 out of every 100 infants have low birth weight and 3 100 have intrauterine growth restriction, percentages that put Honduras in high incidence countries among the member countries of the System of Central American Integration.
Children in rural areas live in misery and poverty and many are forced to work and to withdraw from their studies because urge to make money to provide to households.
"Here you fight for parents to send their children to study, they do when they're young but when they can work them out parents choose schools," says Marina Baptist teacher from a village in Santa Cruz, Lempira .
Many parents who make the effort to send their children to school are losing hope because schools are closed before such strike by teachers.
"Da regret that you make the effort but nothing served if these teachers or classes are around here, 'criticizes Alfonso Mendoza, a father of Azacualpa, Intibucá.
grow with limited
Yamaranguila Mayor, Lorenzo Bejarano, says it's urgent employment generation in the area for families to obtain higher incomes. "Farmers take advantage of the coffee harvest to wangle some money and feed their families but the season is almost over."
The mayor is aware that currently the school lunch plays an important role in the villages where poverty is on the agenda. Visiting
Western communities means being with children eager to learn but with significant limitations, know that there are computers but do not know. Unaware
electricity. In all the villages of Santa Cruz, Lempira, no energy and are illuminated with candles and pine-laden gas.
are large families, children living in crowded and sleep in one bed with his brothers and mother, father, if any.
The majority of births in these remote communities are served by midwives, María proves it. She is the midwife of the community of Santa Rosita in Lempira. "I have helped many women to take their children and some are born with problems," he says.
health problems
In the same villages is common to find children with respiratory problems, diarrhea and even pneumonia. The supervisor of all health centers Gualcince Lempira, Claudia Lopez, said pneumonia, diarrhea and malnutrition are picking on the children of the communities of southern Lempira.
The problem that exists is from the woman's pregnancy, children born with low weight, few manage to survive and others die.
The opening of some maternal child has helped communities cope with the problem but when it comes to serious diseases and should be treated in hospital regional, the situation changes.
The poor state of the streets contributes to their reality because they often do not reach the hospital and die en route.
An example is the one lived in Yamaranguila where an adult died Zeon Sorto name. The report prepared by the Mayor says it could have been saved due to the poor road conditions could not come. These scenes are almost normal in areas where poverty is rife.
Health officials claim that community is important to implement a nutrition project and focus to be sustained by the same parents.
also a program to encourage parents to support the process of education and children stay in school.
infants menu is rice with beans and tortillas with salt and see it as a prize the school lunch. "Children do not really have anything to eat at home and that is serious," said Supervisor Lempira health centers.
Another problem is that there are shortages of medicines in health centers to treat these diseases affecting children.
That is the reality of a country where the government officially in 2011 as the year of food and nutrition security is closely linked to the "National Food Security Strategy" established to ensure the right to food with children and adults in the country.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment