This Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 8, there are thousands of children whose mothers are alive today because of the supporters of many organizations such as Bread and Water for Africa®.
And by the same token there are thousands of mothers of infants and young children who are healthy, growing, thriving and happy because their mothers had the opportunity to have free pre-natal guidance and support and the infants received proper nutrition and any medical assistance they may have needed at clinics and hospitals supported by Bread and Water for Africa®.
Among our partners in Sierra Leone who provides free healthcare to indigent people who cannot afford the most basic of treatment, focusing primarily on young mothers-to-be, mothers and children under the age of 5 (the most dangerous time of their life) is Faith Healing Development Organization (FHDO).
FHDO operates clinics in Freetown, Kenema and Bunumbu Village which “mainly cater to the vulnerable, especially women and children,” said FHDO founder and executive director Rev. Francis Mambu.
Rev. Mambu reported that last year, more than 13,000 women and 2,000 men received treatment at FHDO clinics, the vast majority who likely would have gone without treatment leading to serious illness, and even death.
“The clinics are run on purely a humanitarian basis,” he says, noting that they rely on the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® to help meet the operating costs of the medical facilities and the salary requirements for trained caring staff members.
In Cameroon, where our partner there, Hope Services, operates a hospital in Douala (a project sponsored by Bread and Water for Africa®) last fall shipped 15,930 pounds of “Multiple Micronutrient Supplement PreNatals” supplied by our health care partner.
“Prenatal multiple micronutrient supplementation can improve birth outcomes,” states The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition following a study of prenatal nutritional supplementation of more than 1,100 pregnant women in 18 villages in Niger.
The report confirms what seems to be common knowledge that “maternal undernutrition in pregnancy is a major risk factor for poor child growth” and that “child stunting may be attributable to fetal growth restriction.”
And on behalf of all those mothers, and all those children, who because of our supporters who are alive and healthy today, we at Bread and Water for Africa® this Mother’s Day say “Asante Sana” (Thank You in Kiswahili) on their behalf.
