The ‘Feed a Child’’ initiative:A laudable effort of love from Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians

All donations to the “Feed a Child” programme, big or small, will be acknowledged by the college. The account will be strictly audited and transparency will be ensured. Every cent, or a rupee, will go into feeding a needy child and not into the pocket of anyone. It will only go to the needy children. You have our word of honour on these aspects of this initiative.

By Dr B. J. C. Perera
MBBS(Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paed), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin), FRCP(Lon), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Founder President of the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians

Childhood Malnutrition is the miserable topic of our times in the current fiasco of the crisis in our country. Many international organisations, as well as local authorities, have placed our land at the rock bottom of the abyss of childhood malnutrition. That malady is at a very significant level at present, quite bad in the current medical scenario of our beautiful island. Most unfortunately, it is only likely to get worse with the inevitable deterioration of the economic disaster that looms ahead for the inhabitants of this Motherland of ours.

The medical label of ‘Malnutrition’ is a spectrum of a disorder extending from excessive nutrition leading to obesity and overweightedness on the one hand to lack of proper nutrition or undernutrition on the other. What is of grave concern at present is this inadequate nutrition. When there is a lack of food, it leads to different components of the results of such undernutrition, leading to wasting, stunting, underweightedness, as well as deficiencies of vitamins and minerals. It is an axiom of life that growing children need adequate quantities of different types of food which constitute a balanced diet to facilitate their physical and mental development. In addition to facilitating optimal physical growth, ideal nutrition is also needed for brain growth and intelligence. In the long run, such malnutrition would lead to a thin and short population in the future with rather poor intellectual and mental functions.

In his days as a medical student and a young doctor in the 1960s and 70s, this author saw many cases of children with severe malnutrition manifesting as extreme Marasmus with practically only the skin and bones, as well as Kwashiorkor, the dreaded Michelin man type of swollen children with an intense collection of fluid in the entire body and severe skin disorders. Marasmus is due to a deficiency of all macronutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins, while kwashiorkor is a deficiency in protein intake predominantly. These conditions killed many children.

As the quality of life improved during the 1990s and the early part of this century, such life-threatening extremely severe forms of malnutrition became total rarities. However, make no mistake, the current state of inadequate childhood nutrition is the harbinger of the resurgence of such dangerous forms of clinical states in the not-too-distant future. If steps are not taken to arrest the current trend, these would be the likely consequences that would threaten the lives of children.

The Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians is the premier academic organisation for child health care in our resplendent isle. The members of this establishment consisting of all Specialist Consultant Paediatricians of our country, are not only involved in the care of sick children but are also intimately associated with the mission of providing a healthy childhood population for Sri Lanka. Preventive care is also a part of this vision and expert advice on the provision of optimal nutrition is a very important component of that enterprise.

The college has now considered that it is essential to do its mite to try and provide a gateway to deliver dry rations of nutritious articles of food to needy families to try and supply the basic nutrition requirements to their children, at least in some areas of the country which need urgent attention initially. In that laudable venture, it commenced the “Feed a Child” programme by soliciting public donations to fund this project. The general public and some corporate agencies have responded magnificently. The college has collected around 50 million rupees up to the time this article goes to the press. The philanthropic responses have been nothing but absolutely amazing. It just goes to show that our people, the Sri Lankans, do care; in point of fact, do care ever so deeply and conscientiously for our needy children who depend on their generosity and magnanimity.

The college launched this programme at Nuwara Eliya on the 31^st of August 2022 with the collaboration of Roshan Mahanama, the reputed Sri Lankan cricketer of yore as the Brand Ambassador for the project. Nuwara Eliya was selected as it has a very high rate of childhood undernutrition. At the initiation of this endeavour, dry ration packs, each worth Sri Lankan Rs. 3,000, were provided for families of 491 children who were identified as those with signs of undernutrition. Each such family would continue to receive these food packs every two weeks for the next six months for a start. There are another 150 needy families that are now being recruited from Nuwara Eliya as well. The college will take steps to monitor the growth and development of these children following this intervention. Our next projected enterprise is to extend this programme to Anuradhapura, another impoverished area with a significantly high rate of childhood undernutrition.

All donations to the “Feed a Child” programme, big or small, will be acknowledged by the college. The account will be strictly audited and transparency will be ensured. Every, cent or a rupee, will go into feeding a needy child and not into the pocket of anyone. It will only go to the needy children. You have our word of honour on these aspects of this initiative.

What the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians is trying to do is perhaps just a drop in the ocean. But then, many a drop ultimately makes an ocean. Yet for all that, we cannot do this alone, nor can we cover the entire country. What we are trying to do is to pilot this endeavour as a model which would act as a complementary exercise to all that the other caring associations, international organisations, the Ministry of Health and the Government of Sri Lanka, are planning to do.

We at our college are extremely pleased to note that our caring people, the Sri Lankans, from here as well as from abroad, have taken to heart the universally acclaimed adage that children are the future of any nation. That much-admired icon of South Africa, the late Nelson Mandela, the black nationalist leader, once said “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. Let us reach out to the children“.

Do you wish to be a part of that societal soul that reaches out and cares for our needy children?

If so, all you have to do is to lift a telephone and dial the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians office at 011-2683178 or the Hotline at 0777-508218 or just open a computer and e-mail to <paedssl@gmail.com>

We would be that much obliged, and of course delighted, to hear from you, if only you would be kind enough to care just a wee little bit for the Sri Lankan children.