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Children's Nutritional RecoveryCenter Support 2023-2024Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Project DescriptionA-K 100 (a popular Haitian beverage made from corn kernels,anise, vanilla and cinnamon)OatmealCorn porridgeVarious vegetables, including spinach, leeks, potatoes andcabbageThe Children's Nutritional Recovery Center Support 2023-2024 projectoperates from the Nutritional Recovery Center (Centre deRécupération Nutritionnelle, or CRN) established in 2016 to supportundernourished children, expectant mothers and breastfeedingmothers.With your generous support, Food For The Poor (FFTP) will supplythe following food stipends for one year:
Our partners for this project will be FFTP – Haiti and Haiti’s Ministry ofPublic Health and Population.Completed project budgets are subject to change if not fully fundedwithin six months. The completion date of this project may beextended for issues related to weather, natural disaster or civil unrestto the extent that such events exceed normal conditions and impedethe project’s progress.Total Project Costs: $84,675.01Project GoalNourish and bring 600 underserved malnourished Haitian childrenback to health and provide nutritious meals to pregnant andbreastfeeding mothers from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

HaitiClose to 60% of the 11.3 million people in Haiti live below the povertyline, making Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.Most Haitians struggle to find enough food, clean water, and a safeplace to live. Access to education and healthcare is also extremelylimited.Haiti is a bleak place for children. One-fifth of all Haitian children sufferfrom malnutrition, and 67 of every 1,000 children die before reachingtheir fifth birthday.High levels of food insecurity result from many factors, including highfood prices, reduced remittances and income losses resulting from theCOVID‑19 pandemic and social unrest. All of these factors exacerbatethe already-poor food security situation.With so many families focused merely on survival, many Haitianchildren never get the chance to receive even a primary education.Haiti’s literacy rate is 61.7%.FFTP began working to help the poor of Haiti in 1986. Today, theorganization is one of the country’s largest emergency relief andsustainable development project providers.

Please click the map below to see the Google map location forPort-au-Prince, Haiti, where FFTP will serve through thisproject.GPS Coordinates: 18°35'22.0"N 72°19'55.0"W

Port-au-PrinceHaiti has long struggled with poor living conditions in the country'smore rural areas, causing many Haitians to move to the capital city ofPort-au-Prince, the country's most populous city. The metropolitanarea's estimated population is approximately 2,618,900. This areaincludes the communes of Port-au-Prince, Delmas, Cite Soleil, Tabarre,Carrefour and Petion-Ville.Data from the World Bank suggests that 47% of Haitians wereundernourished in 2020. Recently, the burden of malnutrition in Haitihas been worsened by recurring natural disasters and politicalinstability (UNICEF, 2021). The country's geographic location makes itvulnerable to extreme weather events that have increased in recentdecades due to climate change. Among the many individuals suffering day in and day out are children,who are one of the most vulnerable groups in the country. One in fivechildren suffers from malnutrition in several communes of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, which have been plagued by armed violencefor over two years (UNICEF). Beyond the statistics, children are truly paying the heaviest toll in thecapital, with many communes showing high levels of severemalnutrition. The Ouest Department, the district most severelyimpacted by conflict, expressed a 7.5% acute malnutrition rate, twopoints higher than the national average. After the 2010 earthquake, only two hospitals remained operational inPort-au-Prince. In addition, the University of Miami, in partnership withProject Medishare, created the Bernard Mevs Project MedishareHospital to provide inpatient and outpatient care for people impactedby the earthquake.

The Nutritional Recovery CenterThe Nutritional Recovery Center’s goal is to support undernourishedkids, expectant mothers and breastfeeding mothers from the mostimpoverished areas of Port-au-Prince, especially Cite Soleil. Thecenter operates in collaboration with Haiti’s Ministry of Public Healthand Population. Children who display concurrent illnesses are referredto the Bernard Mevs or Saint Camille hospitals for medical treatment. Affected women from Port-au-Prince’s poorest areas are frequentlyunable to feed their children because they live in extreme poverty, areunemployed and have no income. Many of these destitute familiessleep on the streets or in dilapidated shacks offering little shelter. When visiting the center for the first time, it is usual for children to cryinconsolably and be restless, making it hard to work with them,measure them, take their weight and administer treatment. But thosefamiliar with the center know that their child will get a hot meal uponarrival and, with a full belly, they will calm down. Hot meals at the center are made with nutritious ingredients thatinclude rice, peas, corn, spinach, eggplants, carrots, other vegetables,chicken and products found in the local market. To ensure the center has everything it needs to function, cookingutensils, flatware and cutlery will come from FFTP’s in-kind donations. The center has eight staff, including a nurse nutritionist, two nursesand five other employees. The nurse nutritionist is in charge of eachchild's dosage of Plumpy Nut, a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF)specifically formulated to treat children 6 months or older and adultssuffering from severe acute malnutrition. Plumpy Nut is only given to severely malnourished children, typicallyin an outpatient therapeutic program (Programme ThérapeutiqueAmbulatoire) or a supplemental nutrition program (Programme deNutrition Supplémentaire). The Ministry of Public Health andPopulation typically provides Plumpy Nut supplies.

Malnourished children will be given food and treatment to treattheir condition and regain their health.The children will no longer suffer from chronic hunger.Mothers will be given a respite from trying to procure nourishmentfor their kids.Pregnant and lactating mothers will be fed nutritious foods,safeguarding the health of their babies.The staff will be able to complete their mission efficiently byreceiving enough food supplies for their clients.This lifesaving center has coordinated multiple efforts to extend itsreach in Haiti. If scheduled parents do not attend their appointments,a field agent conducts in-person follow-ups. About 20 mothers ofbeneficiaries residing in areas like Cite Soleil and Solino have beentrained to visit the at-risk population. These "mom leaders" areresponsible for identifying children in the place where they live thatshow symptoms of malnutrition for referral to the center. Meals are provided to malnourished kids, expectant mothers andbreastfeeding mothers each day upon arrival at the center.Accompanying mothers are also given meals if there is food to spare.Your contribution to this project will produce the following changes:With a heart filled with gratitude, we urge you to prayerfully considersupporting this lifesaving project, one that echoes the Christian valuesof compassion and love for our neighbors. Your gift will bring hope tothese struggling families who feel they have none. Together, let usembrace the spirit of mercy and make a lasting difference for mothersand children in Haiti.

TestimonialsFirmane Toussaint, the center's manager,shared, "It breaks my heart when I arrive atwork in the mornings and see that the nursesare struggling to take care of the kids becausethey are whining because they are hungry anddon't want to stay quiet. "For instance, a child once brought me fivegourdes [Haitian currency] and begged me tosell her a Plumpy Nut because she wasstarving. We are aware of what hunger is. Weare aware of the circumstances these womenlive in. Some of them arrive with notransportation expenses for the return."Firmane hopes the project will be implemented quickly after gaugingthe kids' reactions once they are fed. "They quickly calmed down afterfinishing their meal and began playing with one another before it wastheir turn [for consultation]. But when they are hungry, they complainto their mothers that they don't want to stay. If the project isimplemented, it will be beneficial for mothers, but more so for [the]kids. Knowing that their children would be fed [right after they arrive]at the center would reassure the mothers. "The appetite test is one of the tests we administer at the CRN. Itenables us to determine a kid's condition and [their] degree ofmalnutrition. We use sugar water and Plumpy Nut ... The childconsumes the Plumpy Nut prior to [drinking] the sugar water. Oneday, one of the mothers whose kid had not consumed all the sugarwater went home with the rest of it and gave it to her other child, whohad not had anything to eat since she had left home in the morning.The kid vomited a worm after drinking the sugar water. If there was away to reduce these cases, perhaps even completely eliminate them, Iwould be very happy."

One of the program's mom leaders told us her story. "My name isEuphonia Berangere Etrenne. I have been a leading mother for onlysix months, but my child [has] been a beneficiary of the center for twoyears," she said. She helps administer Plumpy Nut to children in need."When they give me the Plumpy Nut, I always make sure to feed it toher according to the directions."Euphonia also reflected on the value of this center and what it does forpeople like her. "The center is important to us," she said. "Poor peoplelike us who come to the center don't even have money fortransportation sometimes. When kids come here, they frequently crybecause they're starving. Sometimes the parents accompany themwithout even providing them with food because they lack theresources; they have no job [and] no money to do so. But we keepcoming because we can see the physical development of the childrenafter a couple of consultations."Euphonia and mothers like her counton dedicated people like you to helpthem feed their children. Daily life is achallenge, and your gift would cultivatehope where there is none. "Many othermothers in the program are nowhomeless with their kids after leavingtheir homes," she said. "Some of them I occasionally [find]lying on the ground in public areas oreven in the streets, but I can't even helpthem. We really don't have the means,so I believe that any assistance wereceive will be helpful. I am also grateful for Food For The Poor and pray the Lord keeps blessing thepeople who are helping us."Please give in the name of Jesus Christ so that the little ones can liveand thrive.

Here is little Griffin Franz when he first entered thecenter and later after he received treatment andnourishment.

Little Shnaylove showsher triumphant return tohealth.

Lovensky Joassaint's recovery has been remarkable.

The healing journey that children experience while at this centeris remarkable. Pictured below is Richardson Pierre Louis on theleft when he first visited the center. The photo on the rightshows his improvement after a few visits.

Click here to see young Richardsoneating his Plumpy Nut.

These are the tiny bodies of malnourished children when theyfirst come to the center. They are referred to the Bernard MevsHospital or Saint Camille Hospital for medical treatment if theyshow concurrent ailments.

The children are checked and measured on arrival toassess their level of malnourishment.

By clicking on the cross, you can view other work done by FFTPon behalf of impoverished and hungry children in Haiti.

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About Food For The PoorFood For The Poor, one of the largest international relief anddevelopment organizations in the nation, does much more than feedmillions of hungry children and families living in poverty primarily in 17countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. Thisinterdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency reliefassistance, water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support forvulnerable children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visitwww.FoodForThePoor.org.To view this proposal online, please visit the following website:https://simplebooklet.com/2319hchildrensnutritionalrecovery