As an assistant nurse, Tangiza Tangiza has seen hundreds of children in his community suffering from chronic hunger. It never gets easier — hearing the pleas of desperate mothers, seeing the defeat in listless, ill children.
Many of the children that come to Tamgiza’s clinic are repeat patients. They receive treatments of Plumpy'Nut, a ready-to-eat therapeutic food, only to relapse when the treatment has ended. Kholoma Fandji is one of the patients that he has seen return again and again.
Across the Democratic Republic of Congo, some 6 million children suffer from chronic hunger. Stunting is a harsh reality here — a condition that impedes not only physical growth in children but also cognitive growth as well.
At 4 years old, Kholoma has spent half of her life chronically malnourished. She first fell ill two years ago, soon after her father’s departure to Angola. Her family took her to the health center, and she received her first treatment of Plumpy'Nut. Since then, she has been stuck in the same cycle of recuperation and relapse: when on Plumpy'Nut she gets better. As soon as the treatment ends, she relapses.
Kholoma's sister Milomba brings her to Katembo Health Center where Nurse Tangiza screens her for malnutrition.
Each day, Kholoma's older sister Milomba accompanies their mother to the field, which is an hour away, leaving her four younger siblings to fend for themselves, often with no food until they return late in the evening.
“My father has been gone almost three years," Milomba says. "We don't have food. Diseases contaminate us, and we have no one to look after us.”
A mother's fears for her children
Nyange Mayimbi's children, Shitema (left) and Marile (right), have recently recovered from malnutrition.
Nyange Mayimbi fears a similar fate for her children. Since her husband’s death from a snake bite in 2023, she and her family have suffered. “To feed the children, it's really a very big difficulty,” she says. “We have a lot of suffering. I have no support. I don't have uncles or a father anywhere else. My father and mother are all dead. I'm all alone.”
Soon after her husband’s death, two of her children, 4-year-old Marile and 2-year-old Shitema, became severely ill. She felt helpless in managing their painful coughing and high fevers, so she took them to the health center. Both Marile and Shitema were severely malnourished.
The health staff prescribed one week’s ration of Plumpy’Nut, three times a day. Since then, Nyange has returned weekly for screenings and another week’s ration. She says the children are now nearing the end of their treatment, and she has seen a change. The challenge will be to maintain their health after the Plumpy’Nut treatment has ended.
When children suffer from severe hunger, it affects all aspects of their lives. They often drop out of school to help bring in extra income for food. They don’t physically or cognitively develop as they should.
You have the power to feed our hungriest neighbors, saving lives AND improving futures. Our Hunger Challenge to Save Lives has been extended, but you must act by March 31!
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in holistic ways all over the world by:
- Helping girls get the education they deserve — providing brighter futures for them and future generations.
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- Sharing love, prayers and hope for a brighter tomorrow with families around the globe who now know they are not alone.
- And so much more … until your love reaches every neighbor.
Raising awareness is key to combatting malnutrition
Nurse Tangiza is determined to change the trajectory of his community. He focuses on teaching families how to stay healthy going forward.
“All you need to do is raise awareness, repeat,” he says. “This is what we are doing, raising community awareness because the Plumpy’Nut won't last forever. The community must know that they can have gardens at home. People should know that it is our own food that they bring us in Plumpy’Nut. Because if we check in Plumpy’Nut, there are peanuts. There is maize. There are beans. It's the food that we produce ourselves here in our community.
Staff at the Katembo Health Center. Your support is training health care workers to combat malnutrition for the long term.
Because of your support, Tangiza is part of a larger change that is happening. He is one of hundreds of community health workers recently trained as part of a community-based initiative.
Your generosity has armed hundreds of health workers with the knowledge and tools they need to combat hunger once and for all in their communities.
All in all, more than 14,000 community health workers will be trained, sharing the same messages as Tangiza across seven villages. It’s part of a seven-step certification process to ensure that change is sustainable and long-lasting, including looking at local causes of hunger within the community and offering local solutions.
Because of you, Nurse Tangiza and his fellow health workers are one step closer to breaking the vicious cycle of hunger in their communities. But we need your help to continue their progress. Our hungriest neighbors rely on your compassion.
