WHM/NHC Nutrition Program

The World Harvest Mission/Nyahuka Health Center Nutrition Program has been operational for over 3 years. Missionaries, Nyahuka Health Center workers and community volunteers have worked to provide food to moderately to severely malnourished children, motherless infants and children affected by HIV/AIDS. Bi-weekly, children come to be weighed, to receive food rations and medical attention.

o FOOD: World Food Program has donated food for that past few years, but has recently given us the final food allowance, as they are funneling their resources to Uganda’s war-torn north. We will use the remaining food for extreme cases only and it should last a few more months.
o MILK: World Harvest Mission’s Uganda Infant Diaconal Fund (funded by individual donors like you and Bread & Water for Africa) has been supplying the program with milk. A stipend is provided for women who act as surrogate breastfeeders. Boxed milk or formula is provided for those who have no wet nurse. It costs about $1/day for these artificial milk feeds. We’d like to provide families with dairy goats as a more sustainable source of milk (Matiti Project).

Pat

This is Pat Abbott. She has been an incredible assest to this team for over 15 years. Her warm way of interacting with people allows her to enjoy rich relationships with many Ugandans.
Over the past few years, she has run two weekly pychosocial support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS. She has also weighed, measured and cared for many young children in the World Harvest Mission/Nyahuka Health Center Nutrition Program.
Currently she is on Home Ministry Assignment in the States until May. She is hoping to catch up with a lot of you during that time.

Matiti Project

Matiti means milk in Lubwisi, the local language. Goats are plentiful in this area and are great for meat. Cows are scarce. Local goat milk production is very poor. Formula is too expensive for families. Therefore, when mothers die in childbirth or of prevelant diseases, milk for an infant left behind is difficult to find.
The best care for that infant is a wet nurse, and many kind aunts and even grandmothers have been so willing to care for children this way.
When a wet nurse is unavailable, we give boxed milk. This is expensive and not sustainable.
The Matiti Project is introducing dairy goats to the area. Lamech and Pauline are Ugandan agricultural extention workers who have come to train the communities in the care, feeding, breeding and milking of these animals as well as providing veterinary assistance.
Last spring we brought 47 goats into the district and look forward to bringing in many more this spring. We hope that they will provide nourishment for motherless infants as well as children of HIV+ mothers.

Karen

Hi, I’m Karen Masso. I’ve been living in Bundibugyo since 1995. The nutrition projects I’m currently involved in are the Matiti Project and the World Harvest Mission/Nyahuka Health Center Nutrition Program which carries out regular food distributions.

Welcome

Welcome to Surviving and Thriving! There are many people on our World Harvest Team in Bundibugyo with a hand in nutrition assistance. We hope this blog will give you an overview of the work as well as a peek into the day to day happenings here.