Young children account for well over a quarter of the 3.5 million people suffering from extreme hunger throughout Niger. Comprehensive health care and nutrition are critical right now, and Mercy Corps’ efforts are focused on severely malnourished children under five years old.

Since mid-August, Mercy Corps has helped nourish more than 4,000 underfed Nigerien children by initiating feeding programs in tiny village health facilities, and by training aides there on how to assess and treat malnutrition. In only one month's time, Mercy Corps nutritionists restored about 650 children to their target weights.

Efforts are currently focused in Niger's northern Filingue region, situated about 175 kilometers northeast of the capital, Niamey, where this season's crop failure portends hard times for the coming year.

Equipping village-level health facilities with the knowledge and skill to serve malnourished children is at the heart of Mercy Corps' strategy. Feeding programs conducted in larger Health Centers are too far away for remote villagers to reach on foot. For this reason, their functions are replicated on a smaller scale at village facilities, usually one-room consultation spaces managed by a community member trained in primary health care and provided a stock of medicines.

To ensure the program's success, two teams of two nutrition aides visited these villages prior to deliveries of food supplements to introduce the activity, ensure support of local authorities and train the village health agent and other feeding workers. Mercy Corps employs a nutritionist to coordinate these teams and to follow up within villages and support the Health Centers in managing their own programs.

"The World Food Programme and other organizations are encouraged by our action in this part of Niger, one of the most underserved areas in the country," said Randy Martin, head of Mercy Corps' Global Emergency Operations team.

Mercy Corps has partnered with a local non-governmental organization called Appui et Renforcement des Organizations Paysannes (AROP), translated as Support and Strengthening of Community Organizations. Together, the two organizations deliver improved health care for Nigeriens that are suffering debilitating illnesses due to malnutrition and widespread food shortages.

The results are healthier children and a brighter future for the Niger.




Contributed by Mercy Corps.

To read another Global Envision article about the drought in Niger, see name of GE article.



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