After the village visit, we visited a nursery/orphanage/not sure how to categorise it as I think it’s an atypical (and brilliant) way of supporting the local community. The idea is to take in new-borns whose parents are unable to feed/cater for the babies. The centre works closely with the social welfare department. All cases must be referred from social welfare. And they take in only 14 babies.
So the purpose of this centre was to help mothers to feed babies until they’re two years old. I think it’s brilliant because you not only relieve mothers’ from the economic burdens of feeding the children (milk powder is ridiculously expensive in Malawi. The centre has to pay a lot for that even though they buy in bulk!), but also prevent many problems due to early stage malnutrition. Many children here suffer from growth retardation (which also affects cognitive development) because they can’t afford food. If I remember correctly Prof Berry once told me about a LBO (locally based organisation) project and I think this’s the one he’s talking about. The idea of LBO is for the local community to tell the donors what they want then the donors do it, instead of having donors initiating something which they do not need. I think this program fits exactly what the local community needs – save us from expensive milk powder!
The babies are very well taken care of. They have a timetable for feeding, changing and sleeping (well the very young ones of course sleep all the time!). They are placed in different rooms and fed different formula according to their age. So in total the centre has 37 children. And catered by quite a number of volunteers and mothers. Yes the mothers help but they do not live at the centre. So this is indeed very high quality of care.
By the time the child turns 2 years old, it’s time for them to go home. By that time (s)he’ll stay for 3 days, with his/her mother in a ‘transition house’ (see picture). The idea is to familiar the child with the future house s/he is going to live. I think this’s so thoughtful as they’re taking care of the children’s psychological needs as well. Very impressive.
This is the best programme I’ve seen so far in Malawi. Thumbs up!
No comments:
Post a Comment