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Kenya: Opiyo’s story and RMF’s Lwala Community Health Center

July 23, 2010 in Africa, Kenya, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Whole Health by Jonathan White | Comments closed

by Jonathan White and James Nardella

Real Medicine’s Ochieng’ Memorial Lwala Community Health Center in Kenya is a community-based health care project that is managed and supported in partnership with the Lwala Community Alliance, a U.S. based humanitarian organization.  The mission of the clinic is to meet the holistic health needs of all members of the Lwala Community, including its poorest.

Whenever possible it addresses health problems at their roots through community health interventions.  It aims to provide excellent community-based health care, not to become a tertiary care facility.  The health center is part of a larger effort to achieve holistic health and development in Lwala, including educational and economic development.

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RMF and friends paint rural MP

November 11, 2009 in India by Caitlin McQuilling | Comments closed

 butterfly

This past weekend 12 artists volunteered to travel overnight via train from Mumbai, Delhi, and Bhopal to spend the weekend in Jhabua helping RMF transform our new Nutrition Rehabilitation Center at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital from a dull hospital ward to a work of art.

This weekend, deemed the Wall Project MP, was the first collaboration between the Wall Project and RMF and was an astounding success!  The Wall Project is a group, founded in Mumbai, of artists (amateur and professional) who get together and create murals and public art displays across the cities.  They volunteered to help us transform the drab hospital walls of our NRC to a bright, cheerful place for children.

Having colorful walls isn’t just about the aesthetics of our NRC: Color and shape are also important for the children’s mental recovery as well.  A child who has a bright, interesting, and stimulating environment will have better neurological recovery and development than children in dull settings. 

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The Hidden Hunger

May 31, 2009 in India by Caitlin McQuilling | Comments closed

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24kristof.html

Nicholas Kristof writes about malnutrition in Africa, but touches on some of the same issues we face with our malnutrition eradication program in India.  Malnutrition in India is most often not a result of the lack of food, but a lack of proper nutrition compounded by a lack of education about what constitutes proper nutrition and young child feeding practices. 

Malnutrition eradication approaches in India over the past 30 years have focused on food security, trying to ensure that families across the country have access to staple foods.  This has resulted in a well developed food distribution system, even in emergency circumstances, but has not achieved reduction in malnutrition – there actually have been increases in some areas.

I’ve included two maps below, the first which maps malnutrition for children under 5 years old, and the second which maps food insecurity in India – rating households’ access to food.  You’ll see that there is a close connection between food insecurity and malnutrition, but this isn’t the only element at play.  Madhya Pradesh, the state with the highest, “extremely alarming” malnutrition rate is not the state with the highest level of food insecurity.

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