Shuoshuo regains normal weight thanks to nutrition counselling

Early in the morning, Yang Xianxian, 25, heads out from her family home in rural Zhijin County, Guizhou Province, to visit the local market. It is in an agricultural area with valleys of maize fields surrounded by forested, cone-shaped karst hills. Red tuk-tuks putter up and down the steep mountain roads, while old women sit outside their houses chatting. On the hillside above town, tall white wind turbines turn lazily in the breeze.

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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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