Good health nourishes mind, body and soul.
When the children arrive at the refugee camp in Uganda from their native South Sudan, they’re sick and frail. This was how 27-year-old Rose arrived with her three children after a week on foot.
Jonas, 10, Joel, 9 and Betty, 3, are feeble and drowsy when they waddle into the camp’s verification room. Says Rose, “We’ve been eating raw cassava tubers from people’s gardens along the way. That’s all we could find. For water, we took from open streams along the way. We drank any kind of water we found because the children would get so thirsty.”
All it takes to bring the spark back to their eyes are a few high-energy biscuits, food World Vision has partnered with the World Food Programme to deliver at four border posts. Fortified with vitamins and minerals, they’re distributed in the first few days of an emergency when cooking facilities are scarce. (The biscuits pack 450 calories and up to 10 grams of protein per 100 grams.) World Vision also provides new arrivals with hot food including beans, maize meal and porridge.
“Once we give them these high-energy biscuits plus water, they quickly change,” explains Rahima, a World Vision distribution assistant. “All of a sudden the children begin to run around, to play, and they respond to questions.”
The food helps Jonas regain his strength and soon he’s drawing a picture of his home in South Sudan. Out of school for years and without a home of their own, Jonas and his siblings still face steep challenges, but for now the family is out of danger. With your support, more families and children like Jonas can receive the essentials they need to survive.
Emergency Food is vital to the survival of children and families living in desperate circumstances.
Donate Emergency Food today.