What are the different ways to sponsor a child for hunger?
According to the ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report’, 189.2 million people are undernourished in India. Help World Vision India save malnourished children and donate online to sponsor a child. Here’s a story from the field about Avinash, a formerly malnourished child who is now perfectly healthy!
Hale and hearty, three-year-old Avinash runs cheerfully around the lush greenery surrounding his small one-room house in Lowairpoa, Assam. When he was 18 months old, Avinash would hardly sit up, crawl or even attempt to walk. In a health screening conducted during that time, it was found that he weighed only 8.5 kilograms and his Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) reading was 11.4 cm, indicating he was severely malnourished and at a serious health risk. The Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre was focused to save malnourished children and so took immediate action. If you donate online and sponsor a child, you too can help out!
Avinash was then referred to the NRC in the district and World Vision India provided the family with a Food Basket to ensure the child had an immediate proper intake of food. Along with the food basket, World Vision India’s local health volunteer assisted the family with saplings to cultivate a kitchen garden outside their home. The volunteer also began training Surobi on cooking nutritious food. This was part of World Vision’s mission to save malnourished children.
In March 2020, when India went into a national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Surobi, Avinash’s mother, was instantly grateful for the kitchen garden that she had just started cultivating before the lockdown began. Because of a consistent intake of nutritious food for Avinash from October 2019 through the lockdown, his weight increased to 13.5 kilograms and his MUAC reading also increased to 15.8 cm, indicating normal health by May 2020. The unprecedented pandemic and lockdown in India since March 2020 brought all activity to a halt and affected life for all. For poor and vulnerable families, the lockdown meant no work, no wages and in turn, no food. Amidst this growing food security crisis in India, we observed a renewed appreciation for kitchen gardens among needy families. These gardens have been invaluable during these trying times for several of them. The gardens have helped us save malnourished children, while raising their standard of living as well. We urge you to sponsor a child and donate online for their better future.
Even for Rima Begum from Assam, the kitchen garden that her family was assisted with just before the lockdown, worked as a charm. When the lockdown began, her husband, who works as a daily wage laborer, could not find any work and earn an income for the family.
Thankfully, Rima’s kitchen garden grew to full maturity and provided them with fresh vegetables. With the money they earned from selling the extra vegetables, they purchased eggs, fish and edible oil, which also helped improve their child’s nutritional status.
Rima went two steps further and helped other poor families in her community with the surplus vegetables that she grew in her garden to help save malnourished children. She now encourages other families to also cultivate this nutrition garden outside or near their homes. When you sponsor a child and donate online, their families benefit too.
World Vision India assisted and trained 18,929 such families to set up and nurture Kitchen Gardens across 59 districts from October 2018 to September 2020. These mortality among these families when the threat had heightened during the pandemic. However, through these kitchen gardens, World Vision was able to save malnourished children. To learn more about how to sponsor a child, visit World Vision India’s website and donate online!
