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| © UNICEF/HQ06-0213/Michael Kamber |
| A woman holds her malnourished son in the UNICEF-supported therapeutic feeding center. |
Food and water. These are the basic elements for survival. Yet some people in this world do not even have access to these fundamental things.
As part of our series of blog posts on UNICEF's Humanitarian Action Report—which lists the 39 countries in the world that need emergency funding—we've been highlighting some of the countries in the report. Djibouti is one of these countries. And Djibouti needs food and water.
Not having access to safe water has a devastating effect on children's lives. Some children, especially girls, walk up to 18 miles a day in this semi-dessert country to fetch water for their families. They miss out on going to school, making it difficult to break out of the cycle of poverty. And if clean water and sanitation is just too far away, children can become sick or die from water-borne illness.
On top of the lack of adequate water supplies, one fifth of all children in Djibouti are malnourished.
One such child is 3-year-old Malika, who was suffering from malnutrition until she and her mother started visiting a UNICEF-supported nutrition center. Malika's mother, Hodan Mohammad, who is 24 and pregnant with her second child, was orphaned at the age of nine. She lives with her cousin's family on the outskirts of Djibouti's capital in a shelter made of metal and tarpaulin sheets. Like many in her community, she does not have electricity or access to safe drinking water.
"This place is a rescue for my daughter and a lot of other children suffering from malnutrition," she says of the nutrition center. Hodan and Malika visit the center daily, so that Malika can receive supplemental feeding and Hodan can get the nutrition education she needs to learn how to prepare healthy meals for her and her children.
In 2008, UNICEF plans to give families in Djibouti access to clean water and sanitation, feed 70 percent of malnourished children and provide nutrition education for their mothers. You can help UNICEF save malnourished children in Djibouti by donating to UNICEF's nutrition fund, which supports nutrition-related emergencies like the one happening right now in Djibouti. To find out more about the situation in Djibouti and what UNICEF plans to do go here, or to read more about Hodan and Malika go here .
