Emerg Nutrition & Health Care, East Africa Crisis

Thank you for your support of Merlin's work in East Africa.  As you will read although numbers have dropped there is still a huge need.  If you can give another gift, Merlin teams and the families we care for would be very grateful.

Below is an Update on our work for the week commencing Jan 20, 2012

The revised Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) launched by UN’s OCHA ( Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs) on January 19, 2012 calls for an additional US$ 168.7 million in humanitarian funding to meet food and non-food needs in Ethiopia for some 3.2 million people between January and June 2012. According to the HRD, Ethiopia needs 403 tons of emergency food aid.

In the past the number of people in need of aid topped 4.5 million, the reduction of 1.3million is due to a coordinated effort by all the local, national and international humanitarian organizations.

Merlin in Ethiopia

• Unfortunately, food insecurity remains the same as at the end of 2011.  However, there is a slight improvement in water scarcity and pasture conditions in some districts.
• There is a great need to expand the supplementary feeding program throughout the region, so that every family is offered the corn-soya blend mix to add to their basic diet.
• Merlin plans to increase coverage of nutrition activities in the eight woredas (districts) which our teams work in.
• A delivery of 65 tons of corn-soya blend was dispatched to Gode on January 16.
• Activities to help teach local communities about how to eat and stay healthy continue.  These are led by Community Nutrition Volunteers (CNVs) with support from Merlin’s Health Nutrition Educators. 7,000 people were spoken to, the groups were a mix of 1 male to every 4 females.
• A delivery of 63 tons was dispatched to Ginnir on January 16, another 63 tons will be delivered in mid February.

Merlin in Kenya

• 32 outreach clinics were conducted from 11 health facilities. Activities included immunization, screening for malnutrition, admissions to the intensive feeding program and curative care.
• 15 Health and Nutrition Education sessions took place.  They focused on hygiene, the correct medicines to use and the importance of seeking early medical attention.
• On-the-job training and mentoring sessions were given to local health facility staff.
• Water and sanitation materials (hand washing points, waste bins, water filters and soap) were distributed to dispensaries.
• Outreach teams held ‘safe motherhood’ clinics in 7 different locations.
• 17 health education sessions were conducted to pregnant woman living in the Turkana area, with topics including; breastfeeding; child positioning and attachment, the importance of antenatal care, delivering in safe, clean places, ie. health facilities rather than at home, immunization and child growth monitoring.

Links:

• Humanitarian Requirements Document, Ethiopia
• Meet Faith, who work for Merlin in Turkana