Haiti: finding relief for hunger in children

Reasons not to Overeat by BreezeDebris
Reasons not to Overeat by BreezeDebris

The international food shortage and crisis is doing its rounds on the blogosphere, and videos are no exception. From Haiti: people eating dirt to survive, and a plan to help feed the hungry Haitian children. Haiti is the poorest country in the American continent, and hunger for them has been an important issue since before this crisis took to the headlines.

In YouTube, toddgsapp shows us a video of the process by which a family makes mud cakes, not only to eat themselves, but also to sell. These dirt cookies or mud cakes are made out of dirt, shortening and salt, and is sometimes their only means of sustenance.

Food for thought, isn't it?

However, it seems that most seem aware of the problem, but there is precious few that we can do to help out. lovinitwithhim uploaded a video on the Haitian Food crisis for Kids Against Hunger you can see here.

With the following Current TV video by robhill_productions for Meds and Food for Kids (MFK) in Haiti we are given an insight into an NGO seeking and testing a possible solution for malnutrition in children, based on a high energy peanut butter product that is ready to use and to be given to the children. This boosted peanut butter is said to contain peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, oil, vitamins and minerals and is produced locally using Haitian peanuts harvested from local farmers and all the other supplements are purchased locally as well, helping the economy. According to MFK, it costs $68 for a full dosage of the ready to use therapeutic food, or Medikal Mamba as it is known locally, to be given to a child and bring them back to life.

6 comments

  • I would welcome the opportunity for anyone who would like to, join me on my next trip to Haiti to purchase food for the schools.

  • Lawrence Buckingham

    Maybe we can get the aspiring cordon bleu chef in the first video to come to america to share with us the joys of diversity.

    Haiti is poor because they killed the white people who provided for them during their disastrous revolution of 1804.

    Zimbabwe is poor because Mugabe and his low-IQ thugs are doing the same thing 200-+ years later.

    Anybody see a pattern here?

  • Tsiresy

    I’m more realistic. I’d rather say that those countries are poor because their former colonizers have taken away all the resources there.
    It’s not a question of “who killed who”.

  • Rene`

    Lawrence Buckingham:

    They killed them because they were oppressed by them not all died they had the chance to leave they stayed to fight don’t get it twisted. But, that is nether here nor there. There problem is that they do not know how to run a country with out corruption. look at the government and do a DNA test. It not whats good for the country but How to my friend in so i can get a better position.

  • George

    Historiography has recognized as true the fact that the ravaging of the farms and machinery after the Haitian revolution took a large toll on Haiti’s economic development. That happens when the only source of revenue in a country is sugar, and people suddenly stop its production. Haiti’s poverty comes from there, and from the socio-economical organization installed there, which made the nation a sugar-only supplier. The new government and its free people couldn’t run its farms, most people didn’t want to go back to the farms where they were enslaved, and the europeans hadn’t prepared the country for anything else than sugar farming. Why Haiti hasn’t developed until now, is the question to be asked, and again, it isn’t. For now there are no questions to be asked, only actions to be done.

  • George you are correct in why things there are in such bad shape. We plan to act and help where we can… right now we are feeding about 500 kids in St Marc, Haiti. We are seeking some longer term solutions to help them help themselves… but after seeing kids starving when I was in Haiti November 2007. I HAD to begin to help!

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.