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A Race Against Time

We face a race against time to save the life of a malnourished child.

Children with severe acute malnutrition are 9 times more likely to die than well-nourished children.

This Is Kayembe

Kayembe had a high fever and diarrhoea for a month before being taken to a Save the Children hospital. He was so sick that he couldn’t eat or walk.

He had lost so much weight that his arm was the same size as an adult’s thumb.

Every year, some 3 million children die from malnutrition. 

For those who survive, a happy a successful life still hangs in the balance – malnutrition can leave them with irreversible physical and mental damage that will severely limit their future potential.

He was so sick.

Kayembe was severely malnourished and fading fast.

But thanks to supporters like you, Kayembe survived.

Doctors immediately put him on a course of antibiotics and therapeutic food.

What 100 years of saving children has taught us

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Many families live trapped in a cycle of poverty. Undernourished mothers are more likely to have undernourished children. Communities and entire countries also suffer, as less developed nations with large malnourished populations struggle to improve economic conditions with a reduced and weakened work force.

Your donations mean that we can save children like Kayembe in the world’s poorest, most dangerous and hard-to-reach places. Not only do we deliver immediate life-saving treatment to seriously sick children, we work to prevent malnutrition before it starts.

Our long-term holistic solutions work with families and communities living in poverty, whose children are at direct risk of malnutrition because they can’t afford to buy enough nutritious food. Your donations help fund interventions like these:

  • Children like Kayembe who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition are treated with a 10-week course of specially-formulated peanut paste called Plumpy’Nut.
  • Staple foods are enriched with crucial vitamins and minerals, like iodine and zinc.
  • In many cases families can’t afford to feed their children a nutritious diet, even if they spent all their income on food. We work with parents to improve their livelihoods and boost their incomes, for example by training them on how to grow different crops to sell.

He was lucky.

After a few weeks recovering in hospital and eating nutritious food, Kayembe had started to put some weight back on and could finally walk for himself.

Your donations won’t just treat and feed malnourished children like Kayembe, you’ll set him on a positive path so he can thrive for years to come.

Thank you for your continued support!