The Fil Rouge Project

The Fil Rouge project in Murayi has the scope to study the children’s nutrition situation in the area and to contrast the infantile malnutrition problem, which is one of the main causes of child death, together with the lack of hygiene and infant vaccinations.
The project has the objective to screen the infant population between 0 and 7 years, with the scope to assess each child’s growth curve, based on anthropometric parameters (weight and height).
Following Unicef’s protocols, children are catalogued in three chromatic areas (for ease of comprehension):
– green area area of normal nutrition
– yellow area area of malnutrition
– red area area of serious denutrition
Children under the green area parameters, are regularly checked every month.
Children in the yellow area, are entered into the nutritional program and monitored weekly.
Children in the red area are hospitalized in the pediatric ward of the Mutoy Hospital, a hospital created by another Italian NGO in the village of Mutoy, two hours drive from Murayi.
Children in the yellow area are summoned to the MHCC every week.
Here, the MCHH nurses check the anthropometric information of the child and, together with his/her parent, cook the meal for that day for the parent and the child.
At the end of the day each parent is provided with a quantity of food/day equal to twice the amount indicated by the World Health Organization, for the entire week, until the next control.
The results of the project in the last few years were very positive, not only in terms of the amelioration of the children’ general nutrition parameters, but also for the growing health and hygiene education of the Murayi mothers.
The next phases of the project are targeted to build a better nutritional culture and to stimulate the growth of a small agricultural and commercial activity in the area.
With the support of our local staff, we shall encourage and help the population of Murayi to create a series of small but well organized farms in their villages.
With our funding we shall offer also micro-credit facilities to help them in growing and selling their agricultural products.

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