Vanessa Curney

First month working for UNICEF as a communications specialist in Niger.  June culminated in visiting some of the hardest hit areas of the food/malnutrition crisis.

 

We made our start in the village of Garin Bouzai, Maradi, in the commune of Sarkin Yama. Here, we would see the women bring their babies in for their monthly healthchecks. The severity of any baby’s malnourishment determines whether it is taken to the thereaupeutic centre or hospital – CRENAM for those who are moderately malnourished; CRENAS for the severely malnourished and the CRENI for the intensively malnourished.

Issa Mahaman (below) has been trained by UNICEF to counsel the villagers on essential family practices that includes the importance of breastfeeding and general health measures.

 

Women pound millet, a staple food grain in Niger:

 

The gold band around this baby’s ankle indicates that he is malnourished and needs further treatment, as confirmed by his health report.

Rakia Lawaly, 25, her husband Ousman, 35, and their six children (soon to be seven) in Tessaoua, Maradi, have been getting 20,000 CFA per month for the past three months (around $37). This cash transfer project is run by Save the Children over the hardship period in the run up to the harvest (October/November). Rakia says it has been a life saver, enabling her to get millet, stock cubes and other foods. Her husband says it has been very tough, and says he will go to Nigeria to find work even if the harvests are good.

 

World Food Programme and UNICEF have launched a blanket feeding programme to give food to children aged 6-59 months in the hardest hit areas of Niger. The CSB supplementary food is made up of flour and sugar and mixed with oil. Here in Zinder, the villagers are treated to a demonstration on how to cook it.

 

Pastoral farmers are having to sell all their animals just to barely keep their heads above water. Rabiou Issa, 45, (below) says he used to sell them for 200,000 CFA but now gets about 5,000. “This is a famine. Things are really, really difficult. We have nothing” he says. Boubacar Garba, 28, another farmer, agrees.

 

The UNICEF team met some Tuareg herdsmen who took us further into the Gadabegi desert in Dakoro o see what is going on: their animals are simply falling down dead from starvation. The men are clearly distressed to watch their livelihood destroyed in this way, and one of the men introduces us to his young daughter, who is clearly malnourished.

Finally, some women in Zinder draw what water they can from the bore-hole