STARVING baby Claude smiles despite his frail hungry mum having no milk or food to feed him.
The seven month old malnourished tot showed The Star and Concern staff a moment of happiness before returning to coughs and cries for his mother to end his constant hunger.
“He is always hungry,” said mum Pelagie Mukashyaka (whose name means Courage) in the Nyantanga Health Centre about 200km south west of Rwanda's capital Kigali.
“I don't have enough food to eat myself, so I don't have enough milk to feed my baby,” she added.
The 38 year old mum brought her starving child to the health centre yesterday to be treated for malnutrition and under nourishment in a programme funded by Irish people through Concern.
Claude weighed just 5.9 kilos (13lbs) – which is way below the average of 8 kilos, or over 17lbs, for his age.
A shocking one in seven children die before their fifth birthday in Rwanda from malnutrition, which is caused by an unbalanced diet, usually due to poverty.
Mum Pelagie has four other children to feed (aged two to 16) and her family barely survive on small quantities of sweet potatoes and beans that she must harvest – while her husband earns their only income of just 65 cent a day.
Yesterday she walked for four hours uphill with malnourished Claude on her back, on what was a scorching hot day, to get to the health centre.
“I really hope that he will gain some weight and I hope to learn more about how to help improve his diet,” she said after Claude was seen by nurses trained by Concern.
Pelagie said she had not eaten yesterday, even after her four hour walk, and feeds her children whatever she can find, which was leaves from her bean plants on Tuesday night.
Another tragic mum, Christine Ntirivamunda, hopes her two year old baby, Benjamin, pulls through after he weighed just 6.9 kilos (15lbs), which was up from 6.3 kilos three weeks ago, when the average child his age weighs 28lbs.
Christine already lost her nine year old son, who died after he was sick for two days with what she believes was malaria.
The Star visited Concern's 'Community Management of Acute Malnutrition' programme where “model parents” in communities help other mums to cure their malnourished children.
Many parents previously thought malnourished children were poisoned.
Concern are supporting the malnutrition emergency initiative started by the Rwandan President Paul Kagame in 2009, which has proved hugely successful.
This includes providing 'plumpy nut' nutrient paste and teaching mothers how to give their children a mixed healthy diet.
However, as 'model parent' Alivera told The Star: “Some families have enough food to provide the mixed diet, but others have nothing.”
To try and reduce this extreme poverty Concern have provided many families with goats, and they have also helped them set up community income supports, such as growing and selling mushrooms.
“A common cause of malnutrition is poverty. Concern is supporting households so they can lift themselves out of poverty,” said Concern's assistant country director Joanne Smyth.
The mushroom growing scheme – helped by volunteer farming expert Jean Claude Rwabuhungu – has already been a huge success in northern Rwanda where communities have seen a ten fold increase in monthly income.
Concern are supporting 37 government health centres, and since January 2009 they had 2,321 children under five admitted with severe acute malnutrition, and 3,818 moderate cases.
"This Concern programme, along with the Rwandan government, is saving the lives of young children like Claude," said Joanne Smyth.
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