This blog post was originally published on Bread for the World’s Bread Blog after a visit to see Helen Keller International’s Homestead Food Production in Bangladesh in action. Photographs are by Laura Elizabeth Pohl and text by Molly Marsh.
The afternoon hours are Tohomino Akter’s favorite time of day. That’s when she can take a break from her household tasks, rest, and play with her 17-month-old daughter, Adia. Like any toddler, Adia much prefers movement.
This post was written by Kathy Spahn, Helen Keller International’s President & CEO and also appeared on the 1,000 Days Blog.
I participated in a panel yesterday hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that focused on the role of women in promoting transformative agricultural development and food security. As Secretary Clinton noted, if women farmers were given equal resources – land, seeds, water, credit and access to markets – they could grow enough to feed another 150 million people each year! With this compelling fact in hand, the discussion got off to a lively start, and ranged from talk about men and tractors to talk about vitamins and land rights.
Have you ever heard the saying, “You are what you eat?” In working for Helen Keller International, I’ve come to realize that this simple adage can mean different things to different people. In America, we often say it when we’re talking about losing weight. In developing countries, this simple phrase becomes a powerful reminder of the life and death impact nutrition can have on the lives of millions of people, especially young children. No one understands the importance of nutrition better than Dr. Victoria Quinn, HKI’s Senior Vice President of Programs. I met with Victoria recently to learn more about her background in nutrition and her views on the importance of nutrition on world health.
This post was written by Nancy Haselow, Helen Keller International’s Vice President and Regional Director for Asia. It also appeared on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website.
Imagine living in Bangladesh and eating little more than a bowl of rice or two each day. Rice has been part of your diet since you were a child, and you feed it to your children because it’s filling, inexpensive and accessible. Aside from small helpings of vegetables or legumes or the occasional piece of chicken, rice is your primary food source.
Rice has calories, but it has minimal additional nutritional value. A diversified diet that includes nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables (and, preferably, animal source foods such as chicken and eggs) is necessary to prevent sight- and life-threatening deficiencies, including vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of childhood blindness, leaving approximately 350,000 children blind every year. Young children with vitamin A deficiency also have impaired immune systems; a condition which increases the risk of death from certain common childhood infections and claims the lives of 670,000 children each year who live in less developed countries.
Gender inequities occur around the world. In Bangladesh, Helen Keller International conducts community-based training in gender awareness with the beneficiaries in our Homestead Food Production program to address and correct these gender differences. In the char region in the southern part of the country, where the land merges with the ocean, the bay and countless rivers and canals, husbands and wives gather together to discuss the division of labor in their household.
Working for an organization with programs that reduce malnutrition (and prevent blindness), as Helen Keller International’s do, has some tasty benefits.
I am traveling with a film crew from Digital Development Communications to create videos of Helen Keller International’s programs in Bangladesh. Our journey has taken us to the southern area of Barisal division, in the sub-district of Barguna. We are working with local partners to implement our Homestead Food Production programs and to establish or re-establish livelihoods destroyed during Cyclone Sidr in 2007.
There are a lot of people in the unlit, rather grimy waiting room at the Diabetes Hospital in Chittagong, Bangladesh. I had read the statistics about the burgeoning numbers of diabetics, but it is a different experience seeing the numbers transformed into persons. Despite a certain level of chaos, patients’ needs are being met – their blood sugar checked, nutrition counseling provided, their feet and legs examined for worrisome pain, numbness or ulcers, etc.
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