Providing nutrition and support to orphaned infants in Uganda.

Local Partner: World Harvest Mission                                                    Local Partner Supervisor: Karen Masso                                                 Area Served: Bundibugyo District, Western Uganda
Program Goal: Provide nutritional, medical and emotional support to caretakers of orphaned infant children to ensure their care, health and survival.                                                                                                Program Services Provided: Breastfeeding support and education, distribution of supplemental food sources, medical exams and medical interventions.                                                                                         Number of Program Beneficiaries: 400 infants and children                       Current Needs: Funding for the purchase of dairy goats to provide supplemental food sources for the infants.

Program Summary: The Nyahuka Health Center/WHM Nutrition Program has operated for the past two years serving motherless infants one year of age and under and malnourished children 5 years of age and younger in Western Uganda and Congo.  

Children are referred to the program from the local health system and are then screened.  Those who qualify based on height for weight or weight for age are given a round of medications (vitamins, deworming, malaria, antibiotics), blood tests and a medical exam by Dr. Jennifer Myhre.  They return every other week for weight checks and food rations (A premix of corn/soy blend, oil, sugar).

For motherless infants, a family member is identified to breastfeed the infant and the program supplements this caretaker's nutrition with eggs, formula or goat’s milk for part or all of their milk needs.  After the child is old enough for solids, soy porridge is also added.

Some children are so malnourished that they are hospitalized and receive starter milk and then high-energy milk after their appetite is regained.  After children reach a good weight, they are discharged from the program.

The Nutrition Program is a partnership between the Ministry of Health and World Harvest Mission.  The Ministry of Health provides a storeroom for food, a location for weighing the chldren and for the distribution of food, a nursing assistant and health educator.  World Harvest Mission offers the services of a pediatrician and two volunteer missionaries.

Donations are used for the purchase of food items such as eggs, powdered milk, formula, and goat’s milk and the program recently began breeding dairy goats. Bread and Water for Africa® funding, a shelter for the women and children to sit under while they wait to be seen was built.