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STARVED FOR ATTENTION
Presented by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and VII Photo
REWRITING THE STORY
Dr. Unni Karunakara, MSF International Council President
In the sixteen years of working
for Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres,
I have seen countless emaciated children.
This past summer I saw many more
when I traveled to Somalia to visit our teams
treating thousands of malnourished patients.
It is a completely natural and human response
to become numb to such startling images of suffering.
But with what we know today
about how to treat malnourished children
and prevent them from dying,
it is absolutely necessary to draw attention
to the plight of malnourished children
far from the spotlight of high-profile emergencies.
Especially when 195 million children are suffering.
That is why in 2010,
MSF joined forces with some of the world’s
top photojournalists from VII Photo
to rewrite the story of childhood malnutrition.
Our friends at VII Photo traveled
to rural villages,
war zones,
teeming capitals,
and isolated mountains
to document childhood malnutrition and its varied faces.
Ultimately these photojournalists captured intimate stories
much like the ones our MSF field teams hear
from mothers every day,
in malnutrition hotspots around world.
Jessica Dimmock, VII Photo
I saw firsthand mothers in Burkina Faso
and the rural United States struggling to meet
the nutritional needs of their children.
The main difference was, that within the United States,
there was a safety net for these mothers to fall back on.
And for Natasha in Burkina Faso there was not.
For her, it was often difficult or impossible
to get her son Alexi foods that he needed to be healthy.
Stephanie Sinclair, VII Photo
In India, I saw mothers
having to feed their children foods
with little nutritional value.
Because this has been going on for generations,
it seemed normal to them.
But just because the crisis has become invisible
doesn’t mean it is not a crisis.
People like you are helping
to make this crisis increasingly visible.
Individuals from more than 180 countries
around the world have joined
the Starved for Attention petition
calling on the top food aid donor countries
to stop sending foods that don’t meet
the nutritional needs of young children.
Many of them are people, who themselves
are living in the world’s malnutrition hotspots.
On World Food Day,
we are taking this message to
Washington, Rome, Tokyo,
and other capitals around the world
with your support.
Thanks to your support, since the campaign started,
we’ve seen significant progress.
The main UN agencies, such as the World Food Program,
Unicef, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
have changed their policies to make sure the food aid they distribute
meets the nutritional needs of young children.
New ready-to-use supplementary foods
that meet the nutritional needs of children under two
have been the cornerstone of responses
to several high-profile major emergencies.
We still need the World Health Organization
to provide technical guidance
on the appropriate foods
for young and moderately malnourished children
so governments will use the right foods at the right time.
And all food aid donors –
in particular the US and European Commission –
must ensure that their contributions to nutrition programs
are used to provide children with
nutritionally adequate, and not substandard, foods.
Reaching these goals means not losing momentum.
We can’t afford to wait for the next crisis to act.
We have the tools today to save these children.
We just need the political will to implement them.
The 195 million malnourished children worldwide
shouldn’t have to be victims of war or famine
to have access to these lifesaving nutritious foods.
Thank you for supporting the Starved for Attention campaign.
MSF will continue to fight for malnourished children.