Blog
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Nutrition Services Offered At Clinic
November 21, 2010
One of the strengths of the John Dau Foundation is that it has always had a strategy to stay focused on our mission to provide quality healthcare in South Sudan. We’ve tried to not do too much, too soon, but instead make a real, measurable impact in areas where we’re capable. A tour of South Sudan and many other developing countries reveals many clinics and schools which are boarded up, where supplies are inadequate, or staff are absent, because an organization tried to do too much at once.
JDF, in turn, has instead taken each problem one at a time—first, basic curative and maternal care when the Clinic opened in 2007; in 2009 a vaccination program through the donation of cold-chain equipment, and then later in the year, TB and HIV programs. In 2010, led by the support of our donors, we’ve launched a series of outreach programs, including trainings and mass campaigns, covering hundreds of square miles in areas which have never been reached. One village donated a goat when Clinic staff came to provide vaccines—the first time any group had ever reached them.
One of the items remaining on the list has been nutrition services. During the “hunger period” last spring, the Clinic staff felt helpless as mothers came in daily with children who were severely malnourished. Several died at the Clinic, as did countless others in the villages who weren’t able to be reached. This month, through the support of our donors and an emergency relief grant, the Clinic has begun to launch a nutrition program. The program is starting first with a two-week assessment of the situation in Duk Payuel, John Dau’s home village. Two nutrition consultants led a training at the Clinic of a 12-person team of enumerators from the Clinic and community. Over the next few weeks they’ll be measuring children in the village and collecting data on hygiene practices and food security. In the coming months, with this training, we hope to be able to conduct assessments of other villages, and introduce nutrition services and supplementary feeding to children who are severely malnourished. It’s a difficult program, requiring community intervention, supplies, and follow-up, but it’s one that is in high demand. UNICEF and other groups estimate that 21% of the children in Duk County are malnourished, and with the large crop destruction from the flooding this year, that number could be—and become—much worse.
But adding these services will mean the Clinic will be able to reach hundreds of children who are suffering from malnutrition, as well as respond to nutrition emergencies—which might come if there is hostility around the referendum in January 2011. In a place where no other services existed a few years ago, that’s a pretty amazing thing.
