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Guest Blog: Cricket Camp Madhya Pradesh, India May-June 2011

September 29, 2011 in Helping Children, India by Sarah Stern | Comments closed

By Nyamat Bindra, Director, Education, Real Medicine Foundation, India

How to make the children not get bored in the summer? How can I make them enjoy staying at school? What can I make them do that is new, exciting, cost effective and something that the children would learn new skills from? What could it be …. Then it struck me! The one thing that Indians love…. Cricket!

I decided to organize a camp for the boys at school and art class for the girls!

Our school boys would play cricket the minute they got a chance, so I got in touch with a cricket coach I met earlier and asked if he could help me.  Mr Ajij Sheikh said that they were conducting a month long camp at the nearby college ground, free of charge, everyday 8am to 10am and 4pm to 6pm for interested cricket enthusiasts! He asked me if we would like to send some of our students. I told him that I could get 10 boys. When I made the announcement to the boys at school, 20, class 6th to 9th graders enrolled! I knew I had struck the right chord with them!

Every day, for the following month, the boys would go for a run in the morning and train in the afternoon, under a team of 5 coaches. They would get free breakfast, which consisted of an egg and a glass of milk in the morning and a banana in the afternoon. All 20, braced themselves for a new challenge!

Caitlin asked them on day 2, so `will you be able to keep up and be ready to be on the ground at 8 am? Jointly, they replied `Yes!’ `We don’t want to be punished by Mr. Shiekh and take extra rounds of the field’.

Our 20 players of TEAM BHIL, needed track pants, shoes, caps, and cricket gear. Caitlin’s father and our volunteer Carolina graciously donated money for that.

The boys learnt and practiced how to be fit, how to increase their stamina through regular runs, stretches and eat the right diet.

In the cricket camp the boys learnt the techniques behind batting, bowling and fielding and other nuances behind playing the game the right way such as pitching a leather ball! 3 of our boys were even selected for a tournament in Dahod and represented team Jhabua.

They learnt a new skill, met new people, made friends with other students from different schools and learnt true sportsmanship spirit.

My goal was achieved!

To keep the girls from class 6th to 9th, I organized stitching, needlework, working with beads and art class, which they enjoyed thoroughly under the guidance of our wardens Nirmala and Pushpa.

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here

We can use any financial help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education,Treatment and Outreach and help toward our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, please click Donate button or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org

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Voices from the field: Returning to Khandwa

March 4, 2011 in Caitlin McQuilling, Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Voices from the Field, Whole Health by Jonathan White | Comments closed

by Caitlin McQuilling

RMF Community Nutrition Educator, Samoti, and a child recovering from SAM. Photo Credit: Ximena Prugue

In March 2009, when I was conducting the initial field visits to develop RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program I visited a village called Shali Dana, in Kalwa block of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh.  I remember being shocked and overwhelmed by the amount of children with severe acute malnutrition I saw in this village and the complete apathy and absence of government services in this village.  We saw dozens of glassy eyed children with thinning hair, bulging stomachs, and protruding ribs, empty anganwadi centers, and children who had been tortured by traditional healers in the name of recovery because of the absence of government health services.  Seeing this village convinced me that RMF had no choice but to do something drastic about this problem.

Samoti visiting Shali Dana

Fast forward to March 2, 2011.  Today I spent the day with our Community Nutrition Educator Samoti in Shali Dana.  She’s been working in this village for exactly one year and has made over 25 visits to this village, every 2 weeks.  Samoti has spent this last year developing a strong relationship with the community, visiting each house with malnourished kids on a bi-monthly visit, and has supported and encouraged government anganwadi workers.  Also over the last year, our friends at Spandan, a wonderful local NGO, have worked closely with the government anganwadi center to upgrade the center using community resources and have been working with the anganwadi worker to improve the quality of preschool education and other services offered to the community.  They have also done a lot of work to promote education in this village in both Hindi and Korku, the local tribal language which is in danger of dying out.

I almost started crying today as I sat in a beautifully painted anganwadi center listening to excited, energetic kids singing nursery rhymes in their native Korku when I remembered that this was the same village which shocked me so 2 years ago.  While being serenaded by the children Samoti showed me her register and went over the details of all the children with severe acute malnutrition in the village.  When she did her baseline survey in March 2010, this village had 14 children with severe acute malnutrition, roughly 15% of all children under 5 in the village, an alarming rate of SAM.

Photo credit: Ximena Prugue

Now the village has 0 SAM children.  We visited the households of 10 kids today who were formerly SAM.  Some of these kids were positively fat, while others were now moderately malnourished.  Watching Samoti made me proud.  As she walked through the village, she was greeted by each family walking by.  She scooped up children as she walked, joked with elderly women, and walked straight into people’s homes announced to pinch babies on the cheek.  If I didn’t know Samoti to be one of the warmest and most compelling women I’ve met, I would think this was all staged.  But having terrified 100s of kids by measuring their mid-upper arm circumference to assess their level of malnutrition I know that you cannot just come to a village once or twice and have kids walk up to you with their arms out, waiting for their MUAC reading.  And that’s exactly what a few of the toddlers in this village did!

If you’ve read the annual report from the Eradicate Malnutrition Program its easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers:

  • 65 staff across 600 villages
  • 37,141 families and 56,194 children reached during the baseline survey
  • 6,857 village nutritional training sessions conducted, training over 68,410 people
  • Counseled 91,034 individuals on malnutrition prevention and treatment
  • Successfully referred 895 children to NRCs
  • Achieved a 25% reduction in childhood malnutrition across intervention villages, 17,994 children who directly improved because of this intervention

They’re unbelievable numbers when you add them up, even for those of us who saw the progress in the field and did the adding.  I’m one of the members of the RMF team who spent hours and hours analyzing our program data.  Eyes bleary from staring at excel sheets and going absolutely crazy over the errors while cleaning data, we sacrificed our sanity and eyesight to make sure our data is as accurate as possible.  Even though I personally verified forms and conducted spot checks in the field to ensure the accuracy of reporting, I have a hard time believing that we reached over 80,000 children!

Young mothers and their children in Shali Dana

But today watching a new mother glow as she was breastfeeding her chubby infant and watching Samoti joke with mothers in the formerly tragic Shali Dana, I saw beyond the numbers and graphs to what RMF’s best at.  Here’s an invitation to every RMF supporter: come out and see for yourself the reality behind our numbers.  There’s nothing like it.

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here

We can use any help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education, Treatment and Outreach and help towards our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, click on the Donate button below or visit our website at www.realmedicinefoundation.org

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Voices from the field: An angel, from Justdail.com

February 15, 2011 in Caitlin McQuilling, General, Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

An angel, from JustDial.com by Caitlin Mcquilling

I’m often asked what keeps me going in the face of the hardships and emotionally taxing situations we face working on issues such as childhood malnutrition and HIV/AIDS day in and day out.  My answer is simple: it’s all about finding inspiration in the most unexpected of places and circumstances.

Caitlin, and the mothers and children at the Malnutrition clinic

On Tuesday while out on a village visit we came across a little girl, Gila, who was extremely sick and dangerously malnourished.  She and her family had just returned from a month long stay at a private hospital in Dahod, Gujarat where Gila was properly diagnosed with tubercular meningitis, but unfortunately was not given the proper treatment.  Over the month she was there the family spent their entire savings and then some only to see Gila rapidly deteriorating.  After a month when the family could no longer afford “treatment” they were sent home.  This is when we found the family in the village, desperate for us to help in any way we could.  As soon as I saw Gila I knew she needed expert medical care not available in the state of MP.  We told the family that we would have to bring the little girl to the hospital immediately and they eagerly agreed without a second thought.

Along with Gila’s father, Suroj, we consulted a doctor in Jhabua to get his opinion on whether or not the girl could travel.  With the doctor’s immediate advice to go straight to Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and BJ Medical College,  I set out along with Sumitra, our CNE who first met the family, our wonderful and uncomplaining driver Mesul, and the little girl’s father and cousin on the 8 hour car ride.

As soon as we reached BJ Medical College, one of the best government health facilities in the country, we were rushed straight to the pediatric ICU.  The wonderful team of doctors there immediately put the little girl on oxygen and started treatment immediately.  They told us that the little girl’s condition was extremely serious and her chances of survival weren’t good, but promised to do everything they could to save her.  I spent the day in the hospital with the family on Wednesday, understanding the next steps with the doctors, getting all the lab tests they needed expedited, and making sure that they were comfortable.   We set the family up with a network of kind local volunteers who promised to look after the family on a daily basis since RMF couldn’t station one of our team members at the hospital for the 3-4 weeks the family would need to be there.

At 5am on Thursday while I was rushing to get my things together for the airport, I got a phone call from Suroj.  Between sobs, Gila’s father told me that she had passed away a half hour before and he didn’t know what to do.  He wanted to go home as soon as possible to cremate Gila, but didn’t know how he would get her body the 10 hours home.  He begged me to help the family find a way home as soon as possible.  When I got into the taxi a few minutes later I knew my options were severely limited.  I had to be on a flight in an hour to go to an important meeting in Bhopal, but I also couldn’t leave this family stranded.  I’m not very familiar with Ahmedabad, especially to find an emergency hearse at 5am capable of making an 8 hour trip across state boundaries.  But as I greeted the taxi driver, that my friend found from JustDial.com, I immediately had a good feeling about him.  I had 20 minutes to convince Nitin, the driver, to drive 10 hours with a sobbing father and a dead body.

I laid it on thick.  In my remedial Hindi I told him about the work RMF does in Jhabua, about the malnourished kids, about this caring family who tried to do everything for their daughter but who were failed by the medical system.  I wasn’t ashamed to beg this man to do us this favor.  By the end of the taxi ride this driver had no choice but to agree to my outrageous request to go directly from the airport to the district hospital to find a family who didn’t speak his language (Bhili v. Gujarati) and to take them and child’s body 8 hours to a tribal area which many individuals in Ahmedabad have prejudice about.   The driver was hesitant to take on this responsibility but conceded to take the family as far as Jhabua (not their village) as long as there was a death certificate.  While the taxi driver seemed honest, I could only wish for the best as I handed him money and ran into the airport to catch my flight.

While going through airport security I arrange an expedited death certificate from the hospital and connected Nitin with Suroj and Suminta.  As I boarded the flight Nitin was lost on the hospital campus.  On my layover in Indore I confirmed that Nitin had in fact picked up the family and that they were safely on the way to Jhabua.  Phew.  Job done.  I could now concentrate on PowerPoints and process indicators.

Thursday evening I got a call from Sumitra, our CNE who met the family in Jhabua when they arrived.  After she filled me in on how the family was doing, how the cremation went, and so on, she also had a message for me.

Not only had Nitin driven the family the 10 hours to Jhabua as agreed, he also insisted on driving them all the way to their remote village himself.  Not only did he go out of his way to drive them to the village, he attended Gila’s cremation as a member of the family.  The next morning he called Sumitra, not to complain, as many people would, but to thank her.  He told Sumitra that he was grateful that RMF asked him to do this.  He said it made him feel so good that he was able to be there for this wonderful family during their time of need and was just happy to be part of all of this.

Thank you Nitin.  Its individuals like you who keep us going and remind us that even in the most terrible of circumstances, humanity can be found from the most unexpected places.

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here and for more on our HIV/AIDS click here.

We can use any financial help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education, Treatment and Outreach and help towards our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, please click Donate button or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.

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Goong Hay Fat Choy, Day 2: How your donations saved two lives

February 9, 2011 in Helping Children, India, Jaimie Shaff, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Continuing with our series from Jaimie Shaff in the field in India, here is Part 2!

by Jaimie Shaff

Naiara joined me on the second day and we began the day with a quick trip to the toy store. Luckily, the toy storeowners had just gone to Indore and had some more toys for us! We picked up a couple of our CNEs and headed back out to the villages, this time starting with some of the kids living in villages outside of our program’s reach.

Day Two:

Manoj

Manoj lives in a village that we do not cover in our program. It took us a little over 2 hours to get to the village, and then another half hour to find Manoj. Manoj was the victim of an inept doctor’s IV rampage, and had over 16 needles stuck in him in just two weeks. By the time we got another doctor to give him appropriate treatment Manoj was traumatized. His mother and I shared tears of frustration, but worked hard to get him better. And then he came for follow up in the middle of a measles outbreak and was promptly stuck with a measles vaccination! Poor kid. But, I’m happy to report he’s super healthy, afraid of me, but very happy with his new toys!

Vijay

Vijay was the first serious case at the NRC in June 2010. I didn’t know him, but the CNEs did. It turns out he lives right next door to Manoj! He and his twin brother are happy and healthy, and received some toys to share.

Neha is finally starting to gain some muscle in her legs, but is still in serious need of psychosocial support. She makes an attempt to walk and doesn’t hide as much, but is still needs a lot of TLC. Her father just grew a kitchen garden filled with green leafy veggies, so we shall see how she progresses in the coming weeks.

Amansingh before

Amansingh from house

On Day Two, we had a whole list of children to see. However, there was one child we absolutely had to see. Amansingh had come to the NRC in October, when our nurses Jana and Rachel were here. He was severely malnourished, filthy, covered in a fungal skin infection, and absolutely miserable. After a month in the NRC, he came back for follow up with a severe case of the measles, complicated by bronchial pneumonia and conjunctivitis. At this follow up, we were introduced to his little sister Suriya, 6 months at the time and ineligible for a vaccination. She was a beautiful baby girl, smiling all the time, and we hoped the mother’s breast milk would protect her.

Amansingh

Amansingh’s village is extremely far away and not covered by our program. I had never been out to his home, but quickly realized why his case was so severe. Their home is a 15-minute drive from the Anganwadi center, and does not have a water pump within a reasonable distance. There is no crop around the house right now, and the parents do not have any other form of income or access to markets.

Suriya how we found her

We arrived at the home to our worst nightmare. Amansingh’s little sister was lying on the ground outside naked, covered in flies, filthy, and crying. She was severely malnourished, and covered in the black marks indicating a recent case of the measles. She was also covered in scars. Her mother was sitting about 10 feet away rocking back and forth, laughing. Her mother is mad.

Amansingh emerged from the house with his father naked, filthy, and miserable. His skin infection had returned with his edema, and he was once again presenting with SAM. With a few words, we whisked the family into our car and began the trip to the Jhabua District Hospital, 2 hours away.

Amansingh and Suriya at hospital

In the car, I felt a little hungry (it was 3pm at this point and none of us had eaten since breakfast). I brought out a couple of snacks, including some dried fruit and a Luna bar. I offered around the car, and back to Amansingh’s family. To my absolute horror, I watched as Amansingh began to practically inhale the food. He hadn’t eaten in days. Needless to say, my hunger quickly disappeared.

We got to the hospital and our favorite doctor came to meet us, sad but not surprised that Amansingh was back. In good hands, we left the hospital and headed back home.

The problem is, this is not going to have an easy solution. The two little children’s lives have just been saved, but the problems are far from gone. The mother is psychologically disabled. The father is in his late 50s/60s. The house still has no access to water, food, or health services. The mother abuses the children during her fits.

Currently, there are no services available for children like this. Their rights as human beings do not exist, as there are no support structures in place to safeguard these elusive “rights.” They are safe, now, in a hospital, but they will no longer be protected when they return home. We cannot remove them from their homes.  We can barely stop ourselves from whisking these children away to a better life.

The sunny side is that without this toy-giving extravaganza, these children may not have had a chance. While we make every effort to follow up with our kids, sometimes it takes just a bit longer. For these two, we came just in time. Suriya still has innocence in her eyes, and it is beautiful.

Your donations and your generosity to my Facebook Cause saved the lives of Amansingh and Suriya. They changed the lives of many others and will keep on changing lives. It’s incredible how a little bit goes such a long way out here. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t wait to continue giving.

For Amansingh and Suriya, we can give our attention and our awareness. We cannot do more than offer services and provide access to basic human necessities. We can only do our best. Our best, right now, is to spread the word, increase awareness, and incite change. Through change, be it policy or a magical group that knows how to help these kids, we are doing our best.  We can change the lives of so many future children by starting now.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here.

We can use any financial help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education, Treatment and Outreach and help towards our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, please click Donate button or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.

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Malnourished Miracles: Vishal’s story

December 3, 2010 in Asia, General, India, Jaimie Shaff, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Continuing with our Malnutrition Eradication Program series and fundraiser another great blog from from Jaimie Shaff in the field in India…

by Jaimie Shaff

Every morning, when I wake up to the honking horns, howling dogs, and bustles of morning life I wonder how the day is going to be. As I lay out my yoga mat and dedicate my practice to what will be, I try to take a deep breath for all that I can not anticipate. See, life in the field is a constant state of uncertainty, a question of what will happen next, and a sequence of highs and lows, equilibrium a state I no longer know.

But it all somehow balances out.

Vishal on his first visit to NRC

Today I arrived to the NRC to the smiling face of Vishal. Vishal arrived at the NRC two months ago presenting with severe acute malnutrition, apparent moderate mental disability, vomiting, and diarrhea, and was not taking food. He had a very severe infection that was treated, but he continued to refuse to eat. His mother was pregnant, and had stopped breastfeeding him 5 months previously—Vishal had never had complementary feeding, and was not responsive to attempts to give him F75, even through the breastfeeding assist.

Vishal continuously reached for the breast of his mother and grandmother, particularly when food was offered to him. However, it appeared that when Vishal’s grandmother was with him, he was more cooperative to feeding. His mother did not come to the NRC for several days, and Vishal began to take the F75. When his mother returned, Vishal stopped eating again. After a week we referred them to seek treatment at another hospital to seek further treatment, but they told us that they had been there before and would not go back. We continued to tell the grandmother and mother how important it was to get him better treatment/nourishment. The grandmother made every effort to get Vishal to eat, but the mother seemed apathetic.

Vishal was my first seriously complicated case in which I had no idea what to do next. At one point, I was up in the middle of the night blending peanuts to make RUTF! When we weren’t watching, his mother and grandmother would try to sneak him biscuits and chips (definitely not in the protocol!), which he would nibble on occasionally, but eventually throw in a fit of anger. In some last ditch efforts, we tried to put RUTF on the biscuits to see if he’d take that, but he wouldn’t. After a week we had asked the family to go to Jhabua District Hospital, but they refused and asked to stay at Jeevan Jyoti.

Vishal after 2 months of treatment

After two weeks, the family wanted to go home for a few days and come back. A wave of kids had just arrived and we knew that another child would fill the bed—we had no choice but to, once again, refer. They told us that they wouldn’t go and asked us to try more, promising to come back in a couple of days. We couldn’t guarantee an empty bed, and when they left the hospital, we could only hope they sought treatment elsewhere.

Every follow up day I’ve looked for Vishal. We’ve sent Community Nutrition Educator’s to his village, but he was never home and no one knew where he was or if he was migrating. I knew when we referred him to a higher center that his condition was critical, and didn’t want to think of the worst-case scenario.

And then today I see his smiling face. He’s up running and laughing and sharing toys with other kids in the NRC. I was absolutely overwhelmed with happiness. His cheeks were plump, he had a sparkle in his eye, and he was smiling. Far from the listless, angry, stubborn child from 2 months ago, Vishal was on the mend.

It turned out that our counseling had actually worked. The grandmother took Vishal to Dahod for treatment and he was put on anti-Tuberculosis medicines. They used our feeding techniques to get him to eat nutritious food, and they have also been engaging him psychosocially, stimulating his mental development and helping him achieve the catch-up that he needs. His mother gave birth to her second son 15 days ago.  Now is the true test to the efficacy of our counseling efforts and emotional support: will the family take back the knowledge given to them at the NRC to raise a happy and healthy child? We hope so. Based on Vishal’s incredible improvement, I think things will work out.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here.

We can use any financial help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education, Treatment and Outreach and help towards our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, please click Donate button or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.

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Loyola student volunteers work towards sustainability in India

September 28, 2010 in General, India by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Phil Ebner has written for our blog before on his time spent volunteering with a team from Loyola Marymount University, in Madhya Pradesh, India with the Revitalizing and Empowering Villages (R.E.V) team.  The following article was just published at Loyola’s online paper about his team’s work:

http://laloyolan.com/news/students-work-toward-sustainability-in-india/

For more information on R.E.V., visit www.projectrev.org

For more information about our Malnutrition Program, click here.

Folllow us on Twitter or Facebook

To contribute to this initiative, please click the Donate button below or through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.


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India: Seven and HIV+

September 23, 2010 in Caitlin McQuilling, Helping Children, India, Jaimie Shaff, Providing Medical Support, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

by Caitlin McQuilling and Jaimie Shaff

Manoj and his friend Sunil (names changed) strolled into the link-ART office today and quietly sat down, neither of their feet touching the ground as their skinny legs and knobby knees dangled over the chairs.  At 7 years old Manoj is one of our youngest HIV+ patients, but also one of the most responsible.  Manoj and Sunil walked 15 km to get to our office today so that Sunil could pick up his ART medication from us for the month.  In his high little voice he told me how important it is to take his ART medication every day and says he follows all of our instructions strictly.

Manoj was extremely sick when he was brought to Jeevan Jyoti Hospital over a year and a half ago.  Malnourished with a vicious fungal infection across his face, he was never able to attend school because he was always out sick.  Both of Manoj’s parents died when he was young so his older sister has been raising him.  She couldn’t afford to care for him anymore and had no idea what to do.

We put Manoj right on ART and now a year and a half later he’s a healthy, little boy with bright eyes and a mischievous grin.  Manoj (and our counselor who visits him regularly) says that his sister takes very good care of him and monitors his medication and nutrition daily.  With RMF and Jeevan Jyoti’s help she’s set up a small convenience shop near their home where she makes enough money to take care of their modest household expenses.

Life for Manoj, however, will never be easy.  As we chatted over a bar of chocolate (okay, I know it’s not nutritious, but who can resist giving an adorable HIV+ little boy a bar of chocolate, even someone working in nutrition), I asked Manoj why he wasn’t at school.  He told us that when he went to school the teacher beat him for not knowing answers and being behind other children.  The other kids in the class made fun of him, not because of his HIV+ status (no one knows), but because Manoj is a 7 year old in a class with 5 year olds.  Manoj was so sick the past few years before he was diagnosed as HIV+, he is two years behind in school.  Since there are no remedial classes for slow students in the schools in rural India, today we agreed to find Manoj a tutor who can give him one to one tuitions so that we can bring him up to speed with the other kids and hopefully get him back in school by next semester.

Manoj is one of 18 HIV+ children that RMF India is supporting for treatment, care and psycho-social support.  For more information on how you can help Manoj and children like him visit our website, www.realmedicinefoundation.org

For more information about RMF’s HIV/AIDS treatment, education and outreach programs in India, click here.

Folllow us on Twitter or Facebook

To contribute to this or any of our other initiatives, please click the Donate button below or through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.


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New York Times covers the Malnutrition crisis in India and our Treatment Center

August 9, 2010 in Donate, Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Whole Health by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Very good article published in Sunday’s New York Times about the malnutrition and food crisis in India.  This focuses specifically on the crisis in Jhabua and Madhya Pradesh where our Malnutrition Initiative and Team India are based.

Link to New York Times article here.

There’s even a photo featured in the article of the treatment center (NRC) that we support in partnership with the Jeevan Jyoti Hospital.   Photo here.

To see our photos of the inauguration of our treatment center at the Jeevan Jyoti hospital :  Slideshow on our website

More information on our Malnutrition Initiative in Jhabua: Malnutrition Eradication Initiative, Madhya Pradesh

To contribute to this or any other of our efforts, please click the Donate button below or directly through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org

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Upcoming Event: Ocean Front Yoga Fundraiser in San Diego

August 6, 2010 in Events, India, North America by Jonathan White | Comments closed

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Treating the children of Jhabua, India

August 5, 2010 in Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities by Jonathan White | Comments closed

By Sharon Levy

This May I had the privilege of volunteering as a Registered Nurse for the Real Medicine Foundation’s Malnutrition Eradication program in Jhabua, India. Jhabua is located in Madhya Pradesh, one of the poorest states in the sub-continent.  60 per cent of children under the age of 5 are malnourished in Madhya Pradesh.  RMF’s program targets this age group to be assessed for severity of malnutrition, need for inpatient treatment, and family education to decrease the incidence of malnutrition.

Working with Michael Matheke- Fisher, RMF’s Regional Programs Coordinator in South Asia, Caitlin McQuiling, Director of Programs for RMF in India, and Community Nutrition Educators, (local women hired and trained by RMF) I went on several follow up home visits to see children who had been recently treated at one of RMF’s Nutrition Rehab Clinics (NRC) The NRC provides 14-21 days of medically monitored feedings of micronutrient rich food for children with severe acute malnutrition. In addition to weight gain, other ailments such as respiratory illnesses, infections, and diarrhea are treated as well. A pediatrician and a specially trained group of nurses follow each patient.   While there the family member who stays with the child, usually the mother, is given education about helpful ways to add protein and calories to the child’s food as well as clean food handling practices.

As May is the hot, hot, dry season in central India, the villages/farms we went to were barren. It was easy to see the great challenge faced by these families to feed their children when nothing of substance could possibly grow in that heat.  In fact, a few of the children we attempted to visit were not there as their families had migrated to other areas of the country for their father to find work.

One of the children we did see for follow up had been ill with vomiting and diarrhea. He was dangerously underweight.  The Community Nutrition Educator informed the mother of the importance of getting him to the doctor. With no transportation and limited resources, RMF was able to provide the family with what was necessary for the child to be seen and evaluated by a doctor.

A few weeks after my departure from Jhabua, RMF opened a new NRC in partnership with Jeevan Jhyoti Hospital.  This unit has successfully treated over 20 children to date and 123 have been treated at other NRC’s in the last 6 months thanks to the tireless efforts of Michael, Caitlin, and their staff.  I hope to return to Jhabua in the future to assist with the program. Until I am able to go back I am committed to spreading the word and raising funds for the magical work that RMF does in India

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