09/06/2010

MSF and invisible children

over a few years i have taken an intrestest in tropical care and this has to moved to become a motivation towards my future in nursing. MSF are raising awareness on one of the biggest killers of children worldwide, which is malnutrition. by using the power of art and media, with exhibits taking place telling the stories of children. one of these aspects is the 'invisible' photographers, who document the feeding centres, care given by the NGO and how the local people in that area live and there problems.
the picture belows shows the use of a MSF assessment tool for malnutrition by measuring the width of the tissue over the humerus bone. the red area shows the child has sever life-threatening malnurtion and is in need of intesive feeding care. aslo recently listeing to MSF podcasts have been hearing about changes in feeding centre practices that they have infact become more community based, just like services in developed countries. as new dietary products have made it easier for parents to feed less cirtically malnursihed children at home. part of this is through the use of peanuts in a product called plumpy'nut: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy
it has aslo been adapted so that it can help the local argituical community, such as in sudan chickpeas where utilsied as they where the locally grown produce thereby putting money back into the local economy.





Invisible Children



"In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such as story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them. A story where children are weapons and children are the victims. The "Invisible Children: rough cut" film exposes the effects of a 20 year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. These children live in fear of abduction by rebel soldiers, and are being forced to fight as a part of violent army." on Frontline MSF reports the mass of children known as the night communters treavelling many miles in the nights to seek shleter out of fear of the LRA was at it's heigh 45,000 children.

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

in may this year they managed to influence the american governement into passing a bill on the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. whatch it here:vimeo.com/11724494