About 500,000 Kenyan children are missing school due to lack of food.

According to the World Food Program, in countries where school attendance is low, the promise of at least one nutritious meal each day boosts enrollment and promotes regular attendance. Where that is not offered, hunger interferes with the children’s concentration in class, affecting class performance. As famine takes its toll across the country, a growing number of students are staying away from school altogether to help their parents look for food (The Standard, Sept. 23, 2009).

Drought and famine have led to an increase in the high school dropout rate primarily in schools in the Njoro and Nakuru areas. While 29 percent of children in Nairobi are malnourished, that number increases to 42 percent in the Eastern Province (Daily Nation, Oct. 7, 2009).

The United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has stated that malnutrition is the major barrier to universal primary education in Kenya.

Famine conditions have also affected livestock in the rural areas of Kenya, undermining the primary source of income for pastoralists, especially the Maasai population.

Malaria continues to be another source of concern, and an increase in cases is predicted because of the El Niño rains expected to pound the country. Malaria is the leading cause of death in Kenya, affecting mostly the rural poor, particularly young children and pregnant women. Most cases affect children under the age of 5 (Daily Nation, Oct. 7, 2009).

While mosquito nets have made a difference in squelching the malaria epidemic, researchers are discovering that mosquitoes are now feeding earlier in the evening, which reduces the effectiveness of the nets. While there has been a dramatic reduction of malaria in children under 5 years, the disease appears to be shifting to older children (Daily Nation, Oct. 30, 2009).

Other threats to Kenya’s children include the H1N1 virus, child abuse and abduction, and neglect. The number of orphans in Kenya has risen to more than 2.4 million. In 2008, 38,325 children were described as neglected and 2,753 were abandoned by their parents (The Standard, Sept. 29, 2009).

The effects of poverty are felt most severely in the country’s rural areas, where half of the population lives on less that Kshs. 1,560, versus the more urban areas where people earn an average of Kshs. 3,000 per month. Of the 40 million people living in Kenya, 16.6 million survive on one meal a day and are most likely to die of disease, hunger or political violence (The Standard, Oct. 29, 2009).

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

But not anymore. The food crisis in Guatemala has become so severe that the president has declared a state of calamity, and the rate of undernutrition in children under 5 has reached 49 percent.

Many remember the famines in China in the 1950s and 60s. Or in Ethiopia in the 1980s. But famine is just not a problem of the past. It still happens in countries that have economies prosperous enough so that no child should have to suffer chronic or severe malnutrition. This is the case in Guatemala.

In Guatemala, the face of poverty and hunger is young, indigenous and rural. Guatemala, with the fourth-highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in Central America and the Caribbean, faces a serious challenge in reducing the rate of chronic undernutrition.

One of the causes fueling the current food crisis is the state of education in Guatemala.

Based on a 2002 census, nearly 24 percent of Guatemala’s population is illiterate because, for example, children desert education in order to help their parents work. This is especially common in rural indigenous areas.

Another reason is a lack of knowledge of the Spanish language, as many of the rural indigenous population speak Mayan languages. Guatemala has 22 officially recognized Mayan languages.

Besides education, culture also fuels malnutrition. Nutritionist Jacobo Jiménez works for a government institution in Zapaca, and has seen the damage some cultural traditions can do:

“We daily fight the taboos that screw up sound ways of having a healthy intake and make things utterly hazardous for the inhabitants in this area.

“A young mother with a baby … she refused to eat eggs because of the town’s belief that [eating eggs] will make the milk she gives to her baby rotten.

“The lack of education of many Guatemalan mothers prevents them from having the right habits and nutritional knowledge in their first months of pregnancy and the baby’s first months.”

Another cultural problem adding to the crisis is sexism.

“Women decide to feed their husbands instead of the children, and I think this is not fair. Girls are forced to stay at home and do chores or take care of their youngest siblings while boys are encouraged to attend school.”

The girls are fed less at home, furthering their undernutrition, and they also do not have the opportunity to learn about health and how to care for themselves and their family as they are denied access to education.

Government decisions have contributed to the crisis as well.

Guatemala has lost the capacity of producing what it consumes (nutritional sovereignty) as a result of economic policies that slant towards a particular market, oriented to reduce the costs of the most dynamic industries, which obtain the majority of their raw material from foreign countries.

Between 2007 and 2008, the area dedicated to corn and beans, the base of the country’s economy, was reduced 40 percent. This lower production drove an increase of importation, which is now happening with five main products coffee, sugar, cardamom, bananas and African palms.

The climate has led to the food crisis, too.

Guatemala, as well as other countries, has been battered by the weather phenomenon called “El Niño.” Effects on weather vary with each event, but ENSO (El Niño) is associated with floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world.

In the Atlantic Ocean, effects lag behind those in the Pacific by 12 to 18 months. Developing countries dependent upon agriculture and fishing, particularly bordering the Pacific Ocean, are especially affected.

Throughout the duration of this devastating weather phenomenon, and just when the crops in Guatemalan soil needed rain the most, there was no rain at all.

Attacking the Global Food Crisis

Living in the small town of San Cristobal Verapaz, Freddy attends the Rayitos De Esperanza Student Center. Surrounded by beautiful green mountains, Freddy and his family have gained hope.

“During the last medical checkup, Freddy [had] gained 10 pounds, thanks to the Complementary Intervention activity we have been hosting,” states Lucía Jom, general coordinator of the student center.

This Complementary Intervention activity was made possible with the funds that were raised in the Global Food Crisis Day held March 11, 2009. Forty student centers have been assisted by this activity, benefiting 2,500 children diagnosed with malnutrition [slight or chronic].

“When a disease is detected, we give assistance” states Erick Castillo, Compassion Guatemala’s Health Specialist.

“The children are diagnosed with the standards that the World Health Organization gives related to weight, size and malnutrition.

“Our health intervention consists in giving the children diagnosed with malnutrition balanced meals. This can be breakfast, lunch or dinner that has been cooked by persons who have been previously trained.

“This training consists in giving knowledge to the cooks of each student center on how to prepare nutritious meals. Mothers of sponsored children are trained as well on how to take advantage of local crops in order to give them the most nutritious meals they can with the family budget they have.

“What we want to do next is strive to find funds to keep educating and training on how to harvest hydroponic crops, such as celery, cucumber, beans, spinach, tomato, turnip amongst many. These crops are rich in minerals and vitamins that can complement the meals prepared at home.”

“The community approves this way of helping children” states Lucía, ”and they are interested in sending their children to have this kind of assistance.”

One of the expected outcomes we wish to reach with the children is that they may choose good health practices and are physically healthy.

Compassion Guatemala has made an intentional effort for all children registered in our sponsorship program to experience reduced nutritional deficiencies and know how to prevent nutritional deficiencies.

The curriculum includes such topics as:

• “What is a lunch?” — with an objective of describing and defining the ingredients of a nutritiouslunch
• “Making a group of healthy food” — with an objective of identifying the five basic groups of food and their value to keep the body healthy
• “Breakfasts are very important” — with the objective of describing and identifying the ingredients for a nutritious breakfast and its importance for good health
• “Make a healthy meal” — with an objective of dramatizing potential scenarios related with different food options
• “Favorite recipes” — with the objective of making a book that contains recipes of food used in their communities

In the midst of the worst of the famine to befall Guatemala in the last 30 years, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs from the United Nations as well as other institutions have predicted that this famine can turn even worse if the second harvest at the end 2009 is destroyed by the lack of rains and low temperatures. This is especially possible in the northwestern part of Guatemala.

The government is already trying to take some actions to assist the families that may be affected by this famine, but this won’t be enough.

We have proven our leadership by currently encouraging people to become involved and donate for the sake of this noble cause. It is thanks to the money raised on our last Global Food Crisis Day more than 4,000 children in different student centers nationwide are being assisted to reach a better physical state.

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25:40, NIV

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

This has been a busy year. Our world is in turmoil and much of that turmoil is affecting Compassion’s work.

Here’s a snapshot of the things I’ve reported over the past 11 months:

military rebellion, slum fire, dengue fever outbreak, H1N1 virus outbreak, flooding, strike, civil conflict, volcanic eruption, earthquake, heavy rains, political unrest, hotel bombings, protests and violence, typhoons, meningitis outbreak, polio outbreak, cholera outbreak, famine, landslide, tribal war, ferry sinking, riots.

As an organization entirely dependent on your trust, we have made a commitment to be honest and transparent in everything we do. This means, among other things, that we do our best to let you know as soon as possible when your child is affected by a crisis or disaster.

In a perfect world, here’s how the process would work:

• Within 24 hours of a crisis, our Field Communications Specialist (FCS) submits a crisis report via e-mail. This e-mail comes to an inbox that I check regularly.
• As soon as I receive this e-mail, I determine whether funds will need to be raised to provide relief, and summarize the report and e-mail it to our partner countries (the countries where the sponsors live).
• Meanwhile, the FCS is in contact with the Partnership Facilitators (PF), field-based staff members who are contacting our affected church partners.
• The FCS then submits a follow-up report via e-mail, with further details from the PFs about which centers are affected, how they are affected, and any other relevant details, photos or video.
• As soon as the church partners are able to provide specific information on registered children, the FCS e-mails that information to me. I do a quality check and then forward that information to the partner countries.
• Each partner country then contacts all the sponsors with affected children to let them know the status of their child.

Seems pretty cut and dried, right? And often, the process works exactly as I just described it.

However, as we all know, we do not live in a perfect world. Sometimes a disaster will wreak havoc on the field’s end, thus affecting our communications process.

Let’s take the recent typhoons in the Philippines as an example.

Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines on Sept. 26. Almost 17 inches of rain fell in 12 hours, halting any semblance of normal life, flooding everything in sight, killing hundreds and displacing thousands more.

Roads were destroyed, electricity was out and much of the country was underwater, neck-deep in some places.

Eighteen of Compassion’s staff members in the Philippines office (more than half) were personally affected by the flooding (including the FCS responsible for sending the crisis report).

After the typhoons, every single staff person in the Philippines office was involved in the relief efforts and for a time, Compassion’s entire staff put their regular duties on hold in order to help those in desperate need.

During disasters like this, while you are anxious to hear news about your child, keep in mind that many unforeseen and unavoidable things can occur, hindering good communication. Grace, patience, understanding and flexibility are critical.

Here are some things that might affect the communication process after a crisis:

• Getting information from the field to the partner countries isn’t always the No. 1 priority.

  After a disaster, the highest priorities are critical needs such as shelter, clean water and food. Communication sometimes takes a back seat to meeting basic needs in life and death situations.

• It’s not just the sponsored children who are affected. Sometimes the staff members themselves are in need.

  While our staff members are trying to address the immediate needs of our registered children, they also must take care of their own families and homes.

• Communication tools are not available.

  The infrastructure in developing countries is much less stable than in the developed world. For instance, telephone and electricity were out throughout Manila, remaining out for weeks in some places. Communicating with the church partners was difficult, and in some cases, impossible.

• Different cultures put different importance on time.

  Many countries where we work are not time-oriented the way we are in the United States. Time requirements do not have the same importance as they do here.

Despite this, you can be confident in our commitment to share accurate information with you as quickly as possible after a crisis. It’s just that sometimes this may take longer than we’d like.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

I’ve been planning a trip to Haiti for several months, and this small Caribbean country has gotten to me. I’ve studied up on the language — Bonswa! I’ve tried Haitian recipes and read stories of its people. I’ve even packed and repacked my suitcase, so excited am I to meet this culture face to face.

Well, all my bags are packed, but I’m not going anywhere. I was supposed to leave on April 12th, and I was hoping to pack you in my suitcase to experience Haiti with me through this blog, but the situation is too unstable to travel right now.

The Haitians are calling it Clorox and Battery Acid — a famine that leaves their mouths white and dry from hunger, like powdery Clorox, and leaves their intestines feeling like they are being slowly eaten by battery acid. Unlike many famines, though, there’s plenty of food on the store shelves in Haiti. The people just can’t afford it.

Because of inflated food prices over the past three months, the 80 percent of Haitians who live in extreme poverty are getting desperate. In January, it cost $2 for a bag of flour. Now it costs $3. It might not seem like a lot to us, but when you live on $1 a day, this 33 percent increase hurts. Thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets in the past week protesting, some holding signs saying “We’re Hungry.” Most are peaceful, but some are getting violent, burning tires and breaking car windows.

The good news is that no Compassion project activities have been affected, although each family is affected by the rising prices as they struggle to feed all their little mouths.

Would you join me in praying for Haiti?

• Pray that the Haitian government can effectively address the situation.
• Pray for the survival of those who are starving.
• Pray for the safety and the health of all the Compassion-assisted children, their families, and Compassion staff.

The trip I was going to attend was called “It Works,” a 5-year interval trip, on which we follow-up on the stories of sponsored children to find out if, indeed, sponsorship works. I hope to still travel to this needy country that has wheedled its way into my heart. I hope to hear the story of Yvette, a former sponsored child who is now a doctor, and of Jean Robert who five years ago was studying accounting through Compassion’s Leadership Development Program, and, of course, I hope to still see the faces of the precious children, who in a glance, despite poverty and beyond reason, remind us of what joy is.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates