Even though today’s difficulties, Caritas Merida developed, in the first semester of 2020, the second SAMAN Program (Monitoring, Warning and Nutrition and Health Care System) with the support of Mejor Venezuela Society Canada.
In this opportunity, 66 children were helped in a condition of malnutrition according to UNICEF parameters that included anthropometric measurements such as height, weight and arm circumference. All of them were children younger than 5 years old, who live in five Parrish of Merida State (San Antonio de Padua Tabay, La Milagrosa, Santo Domingo de Guzmán, San Rafael de Mucuchies and Mesa Bolívar). They presented moderate and severe malnutrition, measured with Z-score of -2 and -3, respectively.
With the performance of nutritional monitoring and accompaniment through periodic evaluations of each children, it was determined their progress. As a result, 55 children reached their ideal weight and anthropometric measurements, according to their ages, in a period of time of 8 weeks, releasing them from the program. The remaining 11 children, increase their weight; however, they still need more time in the program and our support to avoid relapse into malnutrition.
Recently, Mejor Venezuela Society established direct contacts with Caritas de Venezuela, who are able to get the nutritional supplements with a better price and supply them to the regions as Caritas Merida. This will allow us to help more children.
We encourage everybody with the possibility of helping to get involved in our Society. You can be volunteer or donate on our website:
