Thanva recovers from malnutrition

Thanva plays with a fan at Thongkang Health Centre, while his mother Bouanang looks on
© UNICEF China/2024/Andrew Brown

How UNICEF and China are supporting malnourished children in Laos

It’s a hot morning towards the end of the dry season in Nan District, Laos, when Bouanang brings her son Thanva to Thongkang Health Centre for a check-up. Small trucks called tok-toks drive past, with people or farm produce in the back. The sound of cockerels crowing is interspersed with the noise of chainsaws and there is a faint tang of smoke in the air. Further down the road, a farmer is burning a field in preparation for planting casava, ahead of the expected rainy season. There should be an impressive view across the valley to the hills opposite, but the mountains are wreathed in smog due to slash-and-burn agriculture, and the far ridge is a faintly sketched outline against an unnaturally grey sky.

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Vandy is treated for malnutrition

Meena comforts her son Vansy, 6 months, at a community outreach in Laos
© UNICEF China/2024/Andrew Brown

How UNICEF and China are supporting malnourished children in Laos

Meena is a 20-year-old first time mother from Houay On village in Nan District, Laos. Small and just past her teenage years, she still looks like a child herself. With her six-month old baby Vandy on her back, she walks up the hill to the village hall, where a community outreach from nearby Thongkang Health Centre is taking place. It’s around 9am but already well over 30°C. This is the end of the dry season, and the weather is brutally hot. The hills on the horizon are also much fainter than they should be: slash and burn agriculture has created a constant haze of smog that feels out of place in this rural area.

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Families arrive in Dadaab, fleeing drought and conflict

Markabo Ali (right) with her youngest daughter Hodan, 9 months, and sister Habibo, 14 years.
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Lucas Odhiambo

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper

Markabo Ali, 37, is mother to eight children. She used to live in Baidoa, Somalia, but left because of the prolonged drought. Now, she lives with her five daughters and young sister at Dadaab refugee camp, just across the border in Kenya. She sits in a small makeshift hut made from branches and plastic sheets, in an area of Ifo camp for new arrivals who are waiting to be assigned accommodation.

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Daniel treats children for malnutrition

Daniel examines malnourished children at Sopel Dispensary, Turkana
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper.

Daniel Ereng is Nurse in Charge at Sopel Dispensary, Turkana County. He’s an energetic and passionate health care worker who has made it his personal mission in life to bring health and nutrition services to remote rural communities. Over the last three years, Kenya has been affected by the worst drought in decades, driven by climate change. Most of the families in Daniel’s area are pastoralists, who rely on their livestock for food, but very few of their animals have survived.

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Sharlyne recovers from drought

Sharlyne Kapua, 14, at the solar powered water system installed at her school
UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

Sharlyne is a bright and outgoing 14-year-old, who recently graduated from Nabulon Girls Primary School in Lodwar, where UNICEF last year installed a solar-powered water system. The county has been affected by drought for the last three years, and much of the livestock that families used to rely on has died. In the last week, scattered rains have finally arrived. The ground remains dry and sandy, but trees are starting to return to life, with tentative green growth on their branches. It’s a fragile moment for the county.

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Young people get a head start in the fish industry

Fisherman Nicholas adjusts the net on one of his floating fish cages in Lake Victoria
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper.

The waters of Lake Victoria are calm off Dunga beach, Kisumu, as young entrepreneur Vincent and fisherman Nicholas climb into a wooden boat and head out to check on their fish. Storks perch on rocks emerging from the water along the lakeside, while further out white-sailed dhow boats cut across the breeze. “It’s calm now but, in a few hours, it will be very choppy,” Nicholas observes.

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Young people invent an award-winning eco-toilet

Farmer John Ochieng, 77, adds Saniwise manure to a field in his farm in Kisumu
© UNICEF Kenya/2023/Paul Kidero

It’s a hot and humid morning on John Ochieng’s farm on the outskirts of Kisumu town, near a small lagoon. John is a bright and healthy 77-year-old who strides through the fields in bare feet, some of his toenails missing after decades of labour. He enjoys practicing his English. “How are you coping with the atmospheric pressure this morning?” he asks UNICEF, with a twinkle in his eyes.

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Break the chain: cash transfers end the cycle of poverty

Monika demonstrates her woven baskets to a customer on a street corner in Kajiado town
© UNICEF Kenya/2022/Victor Wahome

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper.

Monika Muema, 73, sits at home weaving baskets in the single-room makeshift house she shares with her granddaughter Alice, 13, in Kajiado town. There is a bed on one side of the room and a sofa on the other. A bag of maize flour on the floor provides the main source of food. Monika’s gnarled fingers move in and out of the strings with surprising dexterity, adding neat rows of red, black and white. Afterwards, she packs up four completed baskets and walks slowly to the main road, where she sets up a roadside stall on a corner opposite a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) stop.

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Best start in life: supporting parents and children in Kajiado

Sylvia (left) and Esther (right) play with two-year-old Mikyela at home in Kajiado town
© UNICEF Kenya/2022/Victor Wahome

This story first appeared in the Star newspaper.

Kajiado town is a small Kenyan trading centre, close to the border with Tanzania. It’s surrounded by open grasslands, where Maasai pastoralists tend their cattle. A line of wind turbines turn slowly on a hillside outside town. Hard hit during COVID-19 travel restrictions, Kajiado’s economy is now starting to recover. Close to the centre of town is a compound of a dozen houses. This is clearly a middle-income area. The houses are small but well-made and painted white and blue. A large water tank in one corner provides water for the houses, which are also connected to the electricity grid.

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In Kisumu, healthcare moves closer to communities

Alice Mwajuma brings her children to Bunde Health Centre for a check-up
© UNICEF Kenya/2022/Lameck Orina

This story first appeared in The Star newspaper.

It’s a quiet mid-morning at Bunde Health Centre in Kisumu, when local farmer Alice Mwajuma brings her two children David, 5, and Dahzur, 2, for a check-up. Long antlered cattle wander down the earth road outside, stopping to munch on the occasional patch of green grass. Alice and her boys arrive on a boda-boda motorbike, stopping by a fruit stall on the road outside. The health centre is quiet and cool in the shade of large trees. Blue and white buildings sport graffiti art illustrating health messages, such as the six ante-natal care steps for pregnant women to take.

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