This Plumpy Sup saved lives

The Boeing 767 that left Liege brought with it over 45 metric tonnes of Plumpy Sup that could easily feed more than 15,000 children for a period of 1 month.

However, there is more to this product than meets the eye.

When we arrived Dadab with no plans what to do the next morning, the usual guy that I would turn to was Lucien Jaggi from WFP Rome, my buddy and my logistics contact. After sending a strong message through the sms and called him on a Sunday afternoon, he started the ball rolling and contacted a few people and I too contacted the lady in charge of refugees in WFP Nairobi. The local contact in Dadab was unreachable as the number was wrong so I sms to wait for the number. As the phone services in Dadab was not that prompt, the message of the number i needed never came.

However, suddenly a dark guy just ran into the hut where we were resting and introduced himself as Peter Otieno and he is from WFP Dadab and was looking for me. Seeing him and having the chance to say hi to him was good news.  I smiled instantly and I introduced myself and he started explaining to me what will happen tomorrow and he had all the plans in place for us to visit the camp and see some of the beneficiaries.

I was elated, no words could describe how pleasantly surprised I was and there was like an amazing relief in my heart. We finally be able to see what we wanted to see and do the work that we needed to do.

The main person who was to show us around was Sahar, she's a nutritionist and she was sent from Rome to be in Dadab because of the upcoming distribution of the Plumpy Sup.

As the distribution of the Plumpy Sup will only take place on 21 August, we went for a meeting with mothers for the sensitization programme. Some of these mothers have children who are severely malnourished and they are already being treated with milk and Plumpy Nut which was created to assist severely malnourished children get well.  Currently there are more than 7% children in the camp that are severely malnourished. The moderately malnourished children make up of 20 – 30% of the children there. The determinant of when the children can stop consuming the Plumpy Nut and move on to the Plumpy Sup highly depends on the weight gained. Once the child reaches at least 80% of their median weight, they will be cut off from Plumpy Nut and will be given Plumpy Sup instead.

You must be wondering why I am going on and on about this product. Well, the Plumpy Sup saved many children's lives, they were used in Pakistan and many other countries to treat moderately malnourished children and we helped to ship this product into Nairobi. If only you could see the faces of the children who will be benefitting from this product you will know why this product is very important to be mentioned.

The picture is of one of the mothers, being given a sample of the Plumpy Sup, although, there were no reactions on her face, but we know deep inside she was greatful.

During the sensitisation programme, a lady suddenly burst out and started talking very fast. As we did not understand Somali language, we had to wait until she finished before the translator could explained to us why she suddenly burst out talking loudly. We thought she was angry with something but instead, she was very emotional and was saying to Sahar and the gentleman from the hospital that she is thanksful for whatever they have received from the hospital and WFP. All the ladies will accept anything given as they have nothing. If not for the humanitarian organisations there, her child would have died many weeks ago. The milk, food and Plumpy Nut saved her child's life. She will accept anything offered as she knows that the food given was with the intention to provide nutrients to her and her child so that they could survive the famine.

No pictures of hungry children, no children in fact in the room, but the sound of a mother who was truly touched and truly thankful that her child is alive today. I hope that you now look at this product and see it with a different light.