The soy milk is delicious, and when I drink both cups, I feel full and good.”
—Mi Tien, age 5
That’s how five-year-old Mi Tien feels after she
receives nutrient-rich soy milk twice a day as a participant in a pediatric
nutrition program supported over the past six years by AmeriCares, Abbott and
the Abbott Fund to help fight malnutrition in Vietnam.
Since enrolling in the program two years ago, Mi
Tien has shown impressive height and weight gains, and her parents report she’s
much more energetic and active. Mi was
the first in her family of rice farmers from rural Quang Tri province to
benefit from the nutrition program.
After seeing how the program has helped their daughter, Mi Tien’s parents
have also enrolled her three-year-old brother.
While life is much better for many Vietnamese
children today than it was just two decades ago, the National Institute of
Nutrition reports about one-third of the country’s children under the age of
five are stunted as a result of chronic malnutrition, and about 20 percent of
children overall are considered
underweight and malnourished. The pre-school based nutrition program – managed
by AmeriCares and our partner, Giao Diem Humanitarian Foundation (GDHF) – targets
poor children living in rural, agricultural communities because they often face
the most significant nutrition and health challenges.
Join us in the fight against childhood malnutrition in Vietnam and around the world »
The Pediatric Nutrition Program
Happy participants in the Vietnam Pediatric Nutrition Program supported by AmeriCares
The Pediatric Nutrition Program, which began as a
pilot initiative in 2005 with 372 children, has grown into a comprehensive
nutrition and health program that is improving the lives of 3,200 children
throughout rural villages in Vietnam’s central highlands region. To date the program has succeeded in reducing
the rate of participant malnutrition to just 21 percent, which exceeds the UN
Millennium Development Goal target of 25 percent.
The program’s primary focus has been to improve the
nutrition and overall health of young children aged 12 months to five years
old, who are not yet part of government-sponsored elementary school lunch
plans. Key components of the program
include training sessions for students, teachers, principals, and parents in
health, hygiene, and nutrition, provision of multivitamins and pediatric nutritional
supplements, and school infrastructure repairs to ensure safe, healthy cooking
and learning environments.
The children in the Pediatric Nutrition Program are
served peanut-fortified soy milk which is prepared daily at local preschool
facilities. Each child’s height, weight,
and iron levels are carefully monitored throughout the school year.
Over the next several years, AmeriCares and GDHF will
focus on reducing malnutrition to below 20 percent, primarily by investing
additional resources in extremely poor children who appear to exhibit
persistent malnutrition despite program enrollment. In addition, a five-year evaluation of the
program will help determine whether the success in central and south Vietnam
can be replicated and scaled up to improve nutrition elsewhere in Vietnam or
other resource-poor countries.
For nearly 30 years, AmeriCares has worked around
the clock and around the world in 147 countries to restore health and save
lives. Wherever people are in desperate
need, we are there.
