Children in Yumbe, Uganda
Yumbe District, Uganda has a population of 491,000 people, 255,000 are children under the age of 15. Less than half have access to clean water. 99% do not have a permant house. 70% depend entirely on subsistance farming.
Malnutrition and malnurishment are common, with poor diet, parasitic infections. Most people must walk more than 10 miles to even the most basic medical clinic. There are only three secondary schools in the district.
Famine Strikes in 2009
Two poor growing seasons in 2008 are followed by a complete failure of the 1st seasons in 2009. About 70% of the population was in actute famine. The emergency pediatric feeding center at Yumbe Hospital ran out of food and all medicine.
Admissions and patient deaths increased dramatically during the months of August and September 2009. The increase in the number of admissions is an indicator of the food security in the district and the inability for families to feed themselves. The increase in the number of deaths is an indicator of the hospitals ability to treat.
Our Intervention - September 18, 2009
On Semptember 18th, 2009 we delivered at least 3 months of food and medicine to Yumbe Hospital. We also targeted food aid to families most at risk. Our goal was to get them through to November's harvest and keep them out of the hospital.
The goal of "relief aid" is to stop the decline. As you can see in the graph to the right, we did stop the decline. The number of new admissions declined dramatically, indicating that the food aid sent to families in their homes helped. The number of deaths in the hospital also dropped dramatically, a result of the food and medicine we made available.
"Rehabilatation" in March 2009
Followup rehabilatation work was done March 2009. While the previous harvest had been mostly successful, the strain on the subsistance farmers was still stressing the population. The goal of rehabilatation is to try and return the population to the original "pre-disaster" status.
To do this we purchased $6,000 in improved, high yield, drought resistant seeds. This was enough for farmers to grow about 500 tons of food. This is about $12 per ton of food. Supplying food during the famine cost almost $400 per ton. Obviously supplying this kind of support proactively is much better for everyone involved.
Buying tons of food
