Nutrition Workshop

March 22, 2016

Nutritional Workshops

While here in Haiti last fall I was involved in many cases of severely malnourished children. Two of which were so severe that they were hospitalized for Koshcores (a lack of protein that causes major swelling in all the body parts). The swelling can cause the child to have a heart attack and untreated will result in death. There are many children that with lesser degrees of malnourishment and all the children are probably under nourished. We have the school lunch program that is helping the 750 children that attend our five schools. But there are many other children that cant attend our schools. So another solution was needed. I thought about how our agricultural workshops were reaching so many people, how the people seemed to be so hungry for the information and how they were putting the information to use. Giving a workshop on nutrition could be a good venue for reaching the mothers. I believe it is Gods plan that mothers are bonded to their children and really want what is best for them. If these mothers dont know about nutrition how can they provide their families with what they need? There is also the fact that these families are very poor and cannot afford a lot of food.
I made the decision to provide the opportunity to the women to come to a workshop on nutrition. Providing a class on nutrition that included ideas of how these nutrients could be provided with in their income level. Also encouraging them to grow small gardens in their yard, giving them with some seeds for some of the plants we discussed. Also there was a third session on sanitation practices that would help with the health problems the families face, and environmental issues that challenge their health. One of the sessions were led by a woman working here that is originally from France, she along with three Haitian women discussed the nutritional needs of the family and how they might fulfill these needs with things they could afford. They also talked about the health concerns of not eating a healthy diet. The garden session was led by a Haitian Nun we work with, a agricultural technician, and another Haitian woman that has an agricultural back ground. The third session was led by a Haitian woman that is also a agricultural technician, and a American volunteer. I think it is important that these messages are given by Haitians for many reasons beyond just language skills. One of our main goals is to empower leaders in the communities, and I think that people receive new ideas better from other people in their communities.
The response was wonderful. We had over one-hundred women with the leaders the first day and about a total of ninety the second day in a different location. The woman sang and asked questions they seemed very engaged. A healthy traditional vegetable stew was served for lunch made by my friends here in Garcin. None of the cooks asked for money I was very impressed by that and paid them anyway. The total spent to educate 200 women was $200.00. I know we got a lot of bang for the buck. Last night I asked the ladies that work for us if they have heard any feedback about the workshop. They did the cooking and did not attend the sessions but they knew a lot of the information that was presented. They told me the ladies are all talking about the workshop and are really hoping there will be more workshops. I assured them if I am able to return there will be. While I was reading many articles preparing for the work shop I ran across two reports that assured me this as the right approach. One was on an international summit held in France concerning donors to the agriculture projects in Africa; they were calling for mandatory nutrition programs to accompany all agriculture projects. Another assurance came from a Report from the World Food program specifically reporting on the malnourished and under nourished problems in Haiti. The report listed the first cause for the problems are the lack of education on nutrition and the first solution being education on nutrition. I think we are on the right track. These reports also stated that economic change cannot happen as long as most of the population is malnourished or under nourished. The people just dont have the brain, or physical development to make the necessary changes. They also dont have the calories to work a full day.
So here was another two days in the life of working in Haiti, Thank you for your interest and your prayers,
Denise