Terre des hommes (Tdh) focuses on combating severe malnutrition in Haïti, the poorest country in Latin America, where healthcare is almost non-existent and very difficult to access. Since the massive earthquake in January 2010, Tdh has been bringing emergency aid to the stricken populace.


Emergency intervention
Tdh is there with help for the victims of the 12th January earthquake. The team brings medical and psychosocial care to the casualties, as well as ensuring sanitation and the distribution of drinking water in the two hospitals of Les Cayes. In the region of Léogâne, Petit and Grand Goâve (to the west of Port-au-Prince), mobile clinics are moving around the villages to locate children suffering from acute severe malnutrition, and to bring them treatment. Hygiene kits are distributed to children, women and families. Latrines and access to drinking water will be installed in the camps for the homeless. Psychosocial centres for children are being set up and offer activities supervised by social workers. These activities are aimed at strengthening the children's resilience, and to identify lost children who can be reunited with their families.
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Solutions proposed by Terre des hommes

Dealing with malnutrition by community action - Tdh is combating malnutrition in a concerted fashion with the communities: use of local products, encouraging breast-feeding, water disinfection. The most severe cases of malnourished children are admitted to the stabilisation centre of the region hospital in the South and the others attend community out-patient centres.

Access to water and sanitation - Tdh undertakes the construction of bores and the renovation of water catchments, water treatment and the construction of latrines. Work promoting hygiene in the communities allows local capacity to be reinforced and to guarantee sustainable maintenance of the work.

Emergency intervention - Tdh organises mobile clinics to identify and care for children suffering from malnutrition. The Foundation has a stock of equipment to ensure distribution of drinking water and to construct emergency latrines so as to prevent sources of infection from reaching the villages.


Results achieved in 2008

Health and nutrition - 380 children were treated in a specialist hospital unit in Cayes; 240 at mobile units. 1,233 children aged under five and 83 pregnant women were helped in one quarter.

Access to water and sanitation - Tdh carried out work on 5 water catchments, 67 families took part in constructing their latrines. On the occasion of the International Sanitation Year, Tdh has raised the awareness of more than 3,600 people.

Emergency intervention - At the end of the cyclone season the Tdh mobile clinics treated more than 11,366 children in remote locations, where no NGO ever goes. 102 serious cases of malnutrition were also treated in a temporary stabilisation centre.


Challenges to be taken up

For 15 years, Tdh has been organising missions to track down malnutrition around the Cayes in Haïti. Their proximity to the populations has borne fruits in terms of the trust shown in and credit accorded to these interventions. The most urgent cases are referred to the Hospital Stabilisation Centre established by Tdh and entrusted to public authorities to manage. Nicole, a paediatric nurse has travelled all around the South of the country with mobile clinics for 4 months, in regions where no one ever goes. She reminds us that: “the key to success is in the full participation of communities and children in our campaigns. They have to understand that we are all partners in the provision of the care we are providing”.


TESTIMONY - A response adapted to need

Léger suffered from severe malnutrition when he was 1. He stayed for 8 months in a hospital close by, in a specialist nutrition unit and in a stabilisation unit.

Marie Alice, his sister, was 12 at the time: “after lessons I used to stay and look after my little brother while my mother went home to prepare dinner“. Léger had to be accompanied at all times by a family member so that he could be given the basic treatment. During the 8 months he was in hospital Marie-Alice’s stepfather looked after the other children at home.
Afterwards Marie Alice carried on going to the specialist unit. She observed the nurses and the animators who worked with the sick children so patiently. “I looked at Mirlande playing with them and that’s when I knew I wanted to be a nurse“. But she became pregnant at the age of 16 and then her mother died. She had to look after her child and her two little brothers.

Thanks to Tdh, Marie-Alice was in fact able to take French lessons at the Alliance Française. At the age of 21 she got a position with the Tdh team working with malnourished children in their homes. She also registered with the auxiliary nursing college for an 18 month training course.
Today Léger is 20, and from his build one would never suspect that he had suffered from malnutrition when he was a young child.