Name: Joshua
Age: 4-years-old
Height: 2″6′ (82cm)
Weight: 10.21kg
Assessment:
Underweight, moderately malnourished. Doctors found a cyst in his genital area last year and he has yet to receive treatment.
Name: James
Age: 3-years-old
Height: 2″4′ (82cm)
Weight: 9.75kg
Assessment:
Underweight, moderately malnourished. Recurring conjunctivitis (Pink Eye), caused by lack of sanitation in their household.
Four-year-old James and his three-year-old brother, Joshua, live in a small village on an island in the Philippines. The brothers caught the attention of our volunteers not just because of their spritely nature but also because of their dire living and health situation, which is common among those who had also joined our programs.
Food for Every Child selected the brothers to be part of our Stories segment to hopefully raise awareness of the appalling conditions children are being subjected to in poorer parts of the world.
Food For Every Child Stories
Financial and Living Situation
Like any parent, David and Tyler’s mother and father only want what is best for their children. They want both of them to grow, succeed, and fulfill their dreams. However, their parent’s situation is less than ideal to achieve those goals.
Their father works as a part-time motorcycle taxi driver and earns an average of around US$5 to US$6 per day. The mother stays at home as a full-time housewife, taking care of both David and Tyler and other household chores.
With their meager earnings, the couple is barely able to provide food on the table, let alone afford anything else besides basic necessities. This is common in their small farming village and more often than not, children are malnourished and lack the nutrition to become active in school and everyday life, just like James and Joshua.
“Sometimes we just have rice and soy sauce or salt. We cannot afford to buy meat and vegetables. Prices keep going up and what we earn remains the same,” the brother’s mother explained.
Access to food and proper nutrition is an extreme challenge for people living in disadvantaged communities. Around one in every three children suffer from malnourishment around the world, with most concentrated in communities like where the brothers live.
How We are Helping
Following our initial assessment of the two brothers during one of our feeding programs, we immediately conducted a secondary assessment to determine the appropriate steps to take.
We first listed the family as one of the beneficiaries of the food bank we had established for their community. The family receives a subsistence of one food box and a sack of rice each week. The children are also being provided with a supply of vitamin supplements.
We also conducted private seminars with the parents to educate them about the proper preparation of nutritious meals.
How You can Help
Your donations enable us to continue supporting children like Joshua and James. Every dollar you give goes towards providing food for these children. This allows them to focus on just being children instead of having to worry about hunger.
You can make a difference by helping Joshua and James and children like them struggling with hunger.
More Stories
Jane lives with her parents at an abandoned house. They were given permission by the owners to live there and serve as caretakers of the property. The family raises goats as a way of living. However, they do not make enough from raising goats to meet their basic needs.
Four siblings, Sarah, Sophie, Stella, and Steven, became orphans after they were abandoned by both their parents. The mother left when she separated from their father and neither of them wanted to take care of their children. The siblings were left alone and without any family to take them in.
Four-year-old Angel lives with her nine-year-old sister and their 32-year-old father in a small house in the mountains. Her mother, Jane, works as a housekeeper in the city several hundred kilometers away and she is only able to come home around once a month.
