Rescue a Malnourished Child in Guatemala

Since the beginning of May, we have been taking Casa Jackson out of the Dreamer Center and into communities. We have been working in tandem with the Centro De Salud in Masagua, Escuintla, and the Centro De Salud in Sacatepéquez to identify children and families with malnutrition and other needs.

At first, in May, we visited the houses of children who had been identified by the Centros De Salud as malnourished. Vecany, Robbie and Ana went to measure and weigh the children and to invite children diagnosed with malnutrition to Casa Jackson. These children were based in the villages around Masagua, with some as far as 40 minutes away from the main Centro De Salud. In total we were able to visit the homes of over 30 babies, of which 19 were diagnosed with malnutrition.

We were also able to give out other types of support to the families, providing solar lamps to families and houses without electricity and giving out bags of clothes as well. On one occasion we were also able to take Dr Dian, a long-time supporter of Casa Jackson, with us to check on the babies’ health and wellbeing.

In June, however, we changed our approach after discussions with the Centro De Salud. Rather than going to children’s houses, we visited 6 Health Centres in and around Masagua over a two-week period and the families came to us. This time we also brought prenatal vitamins that had been donated to us by Direct Relief so we could hand it out to expectant mothers. The mothers, aged between 14 and 50, first passed with the doctor and were then given a prescription for prenatal vitamins which we handed out to them.

The babies were weighed and measured by the Centro De Salud and had a talk with Nora, our new nutritionist. If they were malnourished then Centro De Salud referred them to Robbie and Nora to see if the families could be persuaded to come to Casa Jackson. Our interns who came with us also took the information and details of the people we saw in order to see how we may be able to help in the future.

In total, we were able to give out prenatal vitamins to over 100 mothers and weigh and measure over 50 babies. Through our house visits and Health Centre visits, we were able to convince 9 mothers to bring their babies to Casa Jackson.

Moving forward, we are in discussions with the Centro De Salud to once again begin home visits to families who have been identified as having malnourished babies but have not yet been convinced to come to Casa Jackson. We are looking to start the visits very soon. We are also taking the lessons learned from these visits and brigades and planning to move into other departments of Guatemala with high levels of malnutrition so we can continue to fight for food security in Guatemala.

The GOD’S CHILD Project has been working for 30 years to break the chains of poverty through education, housing, nutrition and healthcare. Please click the link below to donate to support us in our ongoing mission.