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RWANDA: Jean de Dieu’s journey from sorrow to success |
275
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Thursday, 29 April 2010 15:46 |
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By Frank Higiro
Rwanda's 1994 genocide had a devastating impact on communities and left many households vulnerable. Jean de Dieu lost his entire family but, through hard work, persistence and partnering with World Vision, he has turned his difficult situation into one filled with hope and promise.
Jean de Dieu Mushengezi, 30, lives in Bugesera District, eastern Rwanda, and is married with a son and two daughters. At the tender age of 15, Jean de Dieu was placed in an orphanage after the horrific events of the genocide. "I found myself moving from one orphanage to another after the genocide, I knew life was going to be difficult,” he says.
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UGANDA: Last sachet of ORS comes to diarrhoea patient’s aid |
249
(3 votes, average 3.67 out of 5)
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Monday, 16 November 2009 12:59 |
By Sylvia NabanobaTwo-year-old John Mutegeki lies writhing in his mother’s arms, moaning softly. Eventually he lets out a tired, strained cry. Stretching himself, he writhes again, his legs kicking the lady sitting next to them in the queue. His mother, Stella Nyangoma, 21, tries to soothe him in vain.
Nyangoma carries him outside and sits down in the grass for a while. A young woman, she seems at a loss of what to do for her little boy. She quietly talks to him, and keeps looking in to see the progress of the queue in the waiting room at Buhimba Health Centre III, Buhimba Sub-county, Hoima district. It is a government health unit.
“I am worried about him; he is my only child. I want him to be fine,” Nyangoma says, her voice breaking. Her husband, 29-year-old Godwin Muhumuza, has two children from an earlier relationship – Immaculate Kwikiriza, 15, and Lillian Tuhaise, 11.
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KENYA: The high cost of malnutrition |
241
(3 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Sunday, 15 November 2009 15:47 |
By Joyce Mulama
When a community health worker talks of a neighbourhood losing up to 10 children in a month from malnutrition, it is time to take action.
Florence Kariuki, a community health worker in Chokaa village in Ruai, a peri-urban settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi, says the village of about 7,500 people has seen increased cases of child deaths from malnutrition.
Her concerns come just six years into the deadline of reducing child mortality by two thirds in 2015.
The poverty-stricken community can barely afford to feed its children adequately, a situation made worse by escalating food prices.
“It is a problem for me to find food for my children to eat. Many times they get just a meal a day, not necessarily nutritious, or they eat nothing at all. I do not have a job; I am also weak to labour as a quarry worker as many women do here,” said Rhoda Kavini, a 52-year-old widow who takes care of her three grandchildren following the disappearance of their mother five years ago.
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BURUNDI: Medicine shortage hampers primary health care |
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Sunday, 15 November 2009 15:27 |
By Venerande Murekambaze
Four year-old Syapata is running a high fever and suffering from acute diarrhoea. She is thin, weak, pale and shows some signs of malnutrition.
Her mother, Rehema Mosi, takes her to Kizi Health Centre in Murama village, Muyinga province, Burundi. The clinical officer prescribes panadol (a pain and fever reliever) and oral rehydration salts to cure the diarrhoea but there is no medicine at the clinic.
If she has money she can find the medicine at a private pharmacy. If she doesn’t, she has to go to another clinic.
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Centres give hope to displaced children in Darfur |
228
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
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Friday, 25 September 2009 11:48 |
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By Dan Teng’o World Vision’s community centres across the war-torn Darfur region provide age-appropriate opportunities for displaced and war-affected children to play, draw, write, sing, dance and engage in other activities to enable them to cope with the effects of war.
World Vision also offers informal education to the children who attend the centres. Education is a basic human right, but many of Darfur’s war-affected children lack opportunities to attend school. Schools are few and far between.
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