Venezuela's food crisis, already extremely worrying in recent years, has been aggravated so far in 2020 due to several factors: the lack of gasoline, the confinement of the population, the economic paralysis made more critical by the pandemic.
In a field study recently carried out by the Andrés Bello Catholic University and published under the name ENCOVI (National Survey of Living Conditions), researchers were able to look closely at “the postcards of a country where 79.3% of the people do not have enough to cover the food basket, at least one out of every four households has severe Food Insecurity and some 639,000 children under five years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition”.
Yaracuy state, located in western Venezuela, is one of the most traditionally affected by child malnutrition. In June 2020, the funds sent by Mejor Venezuela were used to implement the SAMAN Project (Monitoring, Warning and Nutrition and Health Care System) in the September 29 sector of the Marín parish of the San Felipe Municipality. This is a small location considered to be very vulnerable, with limited access to food and public services such as water, gas, and solid waste disposal.
The needs of 70 children with mild and moderate acute malnutrition were addressed. The project lasted 8 weeks and consisted of the application of a protocol involving case selection, diagnosis, guidance to parents and representatives, preparation of the children's medical history, pediatric medical care, deworming, nutritional care according to the dosage established by the SAMAN project, accompaniment before government bodies and entities in serious cases, recruitment of collaborators and community leaders through the church.
In addition to this, in each parish where the SAMAN project is carried out, a nutritional care and prevention center is established, where parents and representatives can periodically weigh and size their children, in order to avoid relapses in their weight and height.
A total of 69 children were able to be recovered thanks to the application of the program, which had the collaboration of numerous volunteers from the parish, whose work is doubly commendable if one takes into account that it was carried out under the restrictions imposed by the pandemic in Venezuela.
Again, we encourage everybody with the possibility of helping to get involved in our Society. You can be a volunteer or donate on our website:
https://www.mejorvenezuela.org/donations
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