Some people say, “Francis, why don’t you contact Mary’s Meals? They’re probably in Congo by now and they do the same as you.”
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| Francis Hannaway at his Malnutrition Centre in Basankusu, Congo |
Six years ago, when I was about to set off for my old stomping ground of the Congo, one of my past students, Jean René Lingofe, told me about his life as a teenager at secondary school. He lived in a village 80 km from Basankusu, with his younger brothers, so they stayed with an uncle near the school, returning on foot to their village at the weekend. His uncle often had little to give them and so they often went hungry. Studying was difficult on an empty stomach.
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| The logo for Mary's Meals - they give |
One of the staple foods in the Congo is called fufu. It’s basically, flour of some sort, usually cassava flour mixed with cornflour, boiled up like ground rice, or semolina, without the milk and sugar. It accompanies whatever else you have and is usually dipped into sauce, or gravy, for flavour.
“If you want to help the local population, Francis,” Jean René implored, “please, just set up a kitchen to give school kids some fufu every day. We suffered so much, trying to study and then having to walk home hungry each weekend.”
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| Fufu - a filling and starchy favourite in the Congo |
I seriously considered it. There would be a huge group of hungry teenagers. Then there would be the people who cooked the food – perhaps they would take some home. People who already sold doughnut balls, peanuts, fried sweet potato and so on would see their businesses go down. The people cooking it would take half of it to send to their families at home – I would be feeding half of Basankusu.
Mary’s Meals is a fantastic organisation. They aim to give children one substantial meal a day at their school. They train local people to cook the meals, and build, or adapt an existing building, to serve as a kitchen. Children learn better when they’ve been fed. Simple.
Are they in the Congo? No.
Will they be in the future? They tend to be in English speaking countries, Congo prefers French. Perhaps I should talk to them.
However – that’s not what my centre for malnutrition does.
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| Up to 75 children are treated at Francis Hannaway's Centre at any one time |
The children we help are severely malnourished, and many in danger of death. Indeed, since we began, around 100 children have come to us too late, or had serious underlying conditions, and died. There is a difference with the children benefiting from Mary’s Meals. Our children are not hungry schoolchildren needing to eat before studying. They are usually from families who don’t have the means to send their children even for free primary education. Other children with moderate malnutrition are already on the slippery slope to severe disability and possible death – our job is to prevent further decline and to educate their parents to vary their diet and to make feeding their children a priority. Malnutrition can be seen in several ways; it isn’t just about not having enough to eat. Children can eat until they are full and still be malnourished. Malnutrition happens when they eat energy-poor and protein-poor foods. The child doesn’t thrive without protein, vitamins, minerals and energy giving foods like fats and carbohydrates.
Some children have suffered neglect in some form or another. Family breakup is common. A child is left in the care of others – others who actually don’t care. Sadly, some very small children are left at home, without a thing to eat, from early morning until the evening while their parents go to their forest garden, or go hunting. That’s neglect.
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| Little Mboyo was so thin, we named him "Skeleton" |
However, the classic case of malnutrition, in our experience, is of a child who has lived a fairly poor existence and then become ill. Perhaps his mother has become pregnant again, or given birth to a second child. Whatever the situation, the child loses weight drastically and struggles to put it back on with the poor diet that is available. Often the supplement of breast milk is no longer available.
Illnesses can include, malaria, intestinal parasites (worms), low blood iron due to poor diet, childhood immunisable illnesses such as measles, mumps, rubella, TB and general infections. Measles for example begins with a fever, small sores appear in the mouth, the child feels lousy and to top it all gets chronic diarrhoea. All these things prevent the child from eating.
A child with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) will start to use the protein of his muscles for energy. Fluids will build up because of the imbalance of proteins and salts. The classic big belly, thin arms and legs image is created. Feet swell until they are so painful they look like they could burst. Damaged skin is stretched and starts to peel – it looks like the child’s been scalded. Even though this is not a burn, the effects are the same – blood fluid (plasma) is lost through the damaged skin and pressure sore develop easily because of tissue damage. Internal organs, such as kidneys, can be damaged.
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| Little Mboyo - before and after |
Treatment is a delicate process. It’s a combination of medical intervention and an easily absorbable diet, high in energy and high in protein. Education of the caregivers comes later – the first thing is to save the child’s life. That’s what we do.
“But, Francis,” you might ask, “isn’t that what Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, Cafod, Save the Children, Unicef and all the rest do?”
Yes, they do. The difference is that they respond to a specific crisis, spend several weeks and then move on to somewhere else. Our work is long-term.
Doctors Without Borders recently came to Basankusu in response to the measles epidemic, which killed about 7,000 nationally. The materials that were left behind were never used after the aid organisation left. Instead, it was sold by local health professionals to the only organisation in Basankusu that treats malnourished children – and I know this, because it was my organisation that bought the special milk powder which had been denied to us earlier.
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| Children become irritable and often bad-tempered when they're severely malnourished. When the start to laugh and play, we know they're on the mend |
“But, Francis,” others might say, “surely you would make a change in society by holding training sessions for the general population. They would pass on the knowledge and malnutrition would come to an end.”
If only this were true.
My experience is that the people who would attend training sessions are the people who already know how to look after children’s wellbeing. It would be like preaching to the converted. I set up a community vegetable garden in a village upriver from Basankusu, with the help of the Catholic Mothers League. They did a great job planting beans to help poor families. Unfortunately, most of the money I sent for the project was spent on so called training – in which each attendee receives transport costs (it’s a village, they all walked), and their dinner. The danger is that people attend for the free meal and then don’t do anything with the training. It’s a national problem. The people who would benefit from any training don’t ever turn up.
Similarly, I’m often criticised for feeding the children with food that they wouldn’t normally eat. “They’ll go back to their villages and won’t be able to find these things,” they say. We use milk with sugar and vegetable oil in the initial stages of treatment. However, our porridge made from soya, peanuts and maize would be easy to make in the village. The traditional foods (actually introduced from Central America) are the things that made them malnourished in the first place. In the 28 years I’ve been associated with the Congo, I’ve seen changes in people’s diets. Bread is a much bigger part of the diet than it ever was, and beans are so easy to grow – and extremely nutritious!
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| Francis Hannaway's group is registered as the Association of Rural Women - Against Malnutrition |
So, getting back to the original idea: Mary’s Meals is a fantastic organisation which helps children to stay in school.
Aid organisations do a great job in emergency situations.
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| Send a donation today to help Francis Hannaway with his work. Click/tap the link above |
My malnutrition centre does an amazing job, using local volunteers and mostly local produce. We’ve successfully treated over 3,000 children. We save children’s lives and hope that later on they would benefit from a school feeding programme, like Mary’s Meals
In an ideal world, every neighbour would look over their fence and help the family next door. Because of general poverty, this rarely happens, especially if you’re not in the same family.
Running a supplementary feeding programme is a very expensive enterprise – we can only do it with your help. Yes, your help. If we had more funds we would extend it further. Nobody takes a salary; we don’t even have a car. Send what you can today – save a child’s life. Thank you.
