Hungry for Self-sustainability

How Haiti is Uniting to Build a Healthier, Independent Nation

By: Emily McIntyre

Produced and Edited By: Sam Campbell

Food Distribution in Haiti. Photo via FMSC/Flickr

When a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince in 2010, the population was pushed deeper into its battle with extreme poverty. Thousands of people died, families were separated and the country’s free market economy plunged. Nonprofit organizations, charities and relief efforts flooded into Haiti for support, and though six years have passed since the earthquake, the country is still picking up the pieces.

Before the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti (CNP)/Kore Timoun (which means caring for children) was established in 1998, the acute malnutrition rate was an alarming 24 percent for the region of Léogâne, located in the Ouest Department of Haiti. 

Today, that rate has dropped to approximately less than 3 percent, said Taryn Silver the country program director of CNP. Focusing on the Léogâne area, CNP depends on female leaders called monitrices to teach the local communities how to be self-sustainable via Women’s Groups and Health Committees. Silver explains that monitrices play an especially instrumental role in treating women who are malnourished, pregnant or lactating. 

“They’ll talk about, like, ‘OK you basically need to eat an extra bowl of rice, or basically eating a little bit extra’ to get those extra calories while they’re pregnant,” Silver said.

Exclusive breastfeeding is also an issue in some communities as well, because not all mothers are well-nourished enough to do so.

“It’s not like they’re supplementing with formula or anything. They’re using food, or baby powders, and just regular powdered milk,” Silver said. “So what our monitrices will tell the women is ‘If you’re buying milk for your baby, no, you drink that milk. Use that extra money to buy extra food for yourself, especially while you’re breastfeeding.’”

In March 2014, CNP also started promoting the growth of Moringa trees, which have nutrient-dense leaves. Monitrices show mothers how they can incorporate them into their diet, such as adding them in soup.

Malnutrition affects Haitian children to the point where often times their hunger distracts them from learning at school. In Ouanaminthe, located in the Nord-Est Department of Haiti, is Institution Univers, one of the top ten ranked schools in the country. The Coalition of Children in Need Association founder Hugues Bastien started a farm to operate in tandem with the school’s lunch program.

The local crops grown there include sweet potatoes, mangoes, coconuts, cashews and limes, and they are harvested to feed more than 2,300 students ranging from preschool to high school.

A worker tends to his organic farm. Photo via uusc4all/Flickr.

“They were seeing not only kids who were malnourished, but even just because they were so hungry, they couldn’t learn. They couldn’t concentrate in class, and they didn’t have the energy to do what they needed to do,” said COCINA Communications Director Anna Lile.

COCINA also funds and supports Univers Medical Center in Ouanaminthe, which has become one of the biggest health clinics in the area. 

Aside from the wreckage following the tragedy, Haiti has suffered from massive deforestation within the past two decades. Part of the reason for this is producing and relying on charcoal for fuel, which requires cutting down trees Deforestation has also forced farmers to abandon or give up agriculture, because not enough profit is being collected from their crops.

“With deforestation, there’s more malnutrition and… there’s often no rain because there are often droughts,” said CNP Program Manager Rose Elene Veillard.* “Locals grow gardens, and the gardens can’t produce anything."

When it comes to a balanced diet, the best recommendation for Haitians with limited access to a variety of foods is to choose the right foods based on what is available. Cost has been a major setback when it comes to shopping for meals at the markets or grocery stores in Haiti.

“They’ve almost created this generation of ‘We live off of aid.’ The people don’t want that. They want to be a strong, proud country.”

Silver explaied that Haiti is frustrated with the food shipments that constantly pour in from other countries. “It puts a lot of people out of business,” she said. “When you go to the market in Haiti to buy rice, you can buy a bag of American or Taiwanese rice for maybe half the cost of Haitian rice.”

Cassandra Jean François, a member of SOHASAN (Solidarité Haitienne de Sécurité Alimentaire et Nutritionnelle) stressed that a major challenge with external aid is that there are no laws for food regulation in Haiti.

“But everyone needs access to food,” she said.*

Tania Bernard, Accounting Manager and official of Haitian Ministry of National Education and Professional Training (le Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle, or MENFP) agrees; she thinks that instead of the U.S. and other countries shipping metric tons of food as a form of aid, they should lend assistance in helping to reform the nation’s economy.

“So the help we need in Haiti by precisely related to this issue of food insecurity is first domestic production,” Bernard said. “I think the development of our country must first go through projects…  agricultural reform projects, projects that are taking shape in the rural section, with farmers and with communities in order to arrive at large-scale development of our national economy.”

Lost in the whirlwind of governmental reform, the Haitian population can only hope to make steps toward becoming a more sustainable nation once their new political leaders take office.

“They want to have hope for their future. They know that their country is broken, and they want to be able to take care of themselves,” Lile said. “They’ve almost created this generation of ‘We live off of aid.’ The people don’t want that. They want to be a strong, proud country.”

*Some quotes translated by the author.

"Food, glorious food!"

Produced & Edited by Signe Ivask

University of Tartu, Estonia

Eating in Ghana: Where’s my Jollof and Chicken?

Michelle Robinson

mr200810@ohio.edu

One of the most notable experiences on any trip abroad is trying all the various types of food that are staples to the people and their culture. Little did I know that the Ghanaian food and dining experiences we had would become some of the moments that left the biggest imprint on our trip.

I was a little worried for myself and my classmates at first because a few of us are vegetarians or pescetarians, meaning eating fish but not other meat. I came to Ghana knowing that I’d be willing to try all types of food that I could, but food turned out to be more of a struggle than I’d expected.

This willingness to try anything took me by surprise though, seeing as on the second day of the trip THIS was my dinner. Never had I been served an entire fish on a plate before.

 Besides the obvious distraction of scales and picking bones out of my mouth, the fish tasted great. But Dr. Kalyango convinced me that I had to try the fish eye, which he said was the best part. I remember Dr K telling me that the eye would just slide down my throat like ice cream and that I would crave fish eye for every meal. I don’t know what he was thinking though, because that slimy eye had no resemblance whatsoever to ice cream….

Over the next few weeks we all had the opportunity to try some special Ghanaian staple-dishes. We became very familiar with the likes of jollof rice, waakye, red red, fried chicken, tilapia, banku, and the ever delicious fried plantains, which were my favorite. 

In fact, we began to expect (and in Josh’s case, CRAVE) jollof for every group meal.

A video by AdomHomeCooking on how to prepare Ghanaian Jollof

Everyone was very willing to try new things, but we found that group dinners became a little notorious for being disastrous to a degree. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved our group dinners and found they were a great bonding experience for all of us. But customer service in Ghana is so much different than that in America, which became one of the biggest learning experiences of all in terms of my ability to be patient.

Unlike what we expect in the United States, restaurants actually do have a limited supply of food for the day. I don’t think any local restaurant in Ghana expects a group of 20-something hungry young adults to swarm their restaurant all at once, therefore weren’t always able to cater to our needs and stomachs. We often joked that it took so long because the cooks had to go out and catch our fish or chicken before they prepared it for us. 

Oftentimes our meals would span over several hours, with some people being fed super early, some not getting their food for 3 hours, and some not being fed at all. When the kitchen would run out of a certain type of food they wouldn’t tell us until it was too late, and orders were sometimes forgotten. It was not uncommon to hear someone say "Where's my jollof and chicken?" at every meal. Although it was frustrating, we became very good at sharing our food family-style to make sure no one would leave hungry.

After two weeks I did get sick of eating rice and beans for every meal. Also, the Ghanaians were shocked whenever I ordered food without meat, and would try to force some protein onto my plate, much to my demise. 

Even though I was glad to try new things, I’m willing to admit that we all jumped on the chance to eat pizza whenever we could. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss bread and cheese, or other dairy products. And even though we may have all gotten upset stomachs from the food which led to nights with the toilet, and even though I don’t want to eat rice and beans again for a very long time, I’m happy that Ghana gave me the opportunity to expand my culinary diary and open my eyes to new foods. As I reflect on the food experiences from Ghana, I leave you with this closing haiku:

The fish was fresher

The pineapple was sweeter

Jollof is spicy

South Sudanese food crisis rises

By: Victoria Calderon  
Produced and edited by: Kaylyn Hlavaty

Shortly after declaring independence last July, South Sudan faces rising food prices and food insecurity for 2.4 million people.

Senada Kahriman, country director of CHF International in South Sudan said the country is reliant on imported food and cites lack of infrastructure in the country as a cause of the food crisis.

“There is very little local production [of food] and even in locations where food production is high enough to send goods to the market, lack of roads and basic infrastructure makes imported food, majorly from Uganda, easier to access,” said Kahriman.

According to the Malaria Consortium, the twenty-two year civil war that ended in 2005 left the infrastructure of South Sudan in a poor condition. Non-governmental organizations have been left to fill in the gaps while the infrastructure improves.

More than two years after its independence, South Sudan remains to be one of Africa’s least developed countries as indicated by a 2011 report determined by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Oil Production Ceases

In addition, a halt in oil production after disputes with Sudan has left the south without its major source of revenue since January.

"South Sudan derived about 98-percent of its budgetary revenue from oil exports," said George Fominyen, a spokesperson from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

Once reliant on agriculture, the country turned to oil as a means of profit. Now, only four percent of arable land in South Sudan is currently under cultivation.

This is also a result of the country's expensive costs to operate the environment, said Kahriman.

It is estimated that 75-percent of former Sudan's oil reserves now remain in the south. A 2005 accord split the oil revenue evenly between the two countries, but this agreement ended with South Sudan's independence.

A breakdown in agreements after the split has suspended the production of oil since January. Plans to reopen the oil fields in September were postponed after Sudan added an addendum to the cooperation agreement.

Sudan has demanded that South Sudan disarm rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North, which currently operate in two states bordering South Sudan.

Negotiations for the implementation of a cooperation agreement between the two countries are still ongoing.

Food Insecurity Fominyen says, “Food insecurity is persistent in the country with a minimum of ten percent of the population experiencing severe seasonal food insecurity every year over the past five years, regardless of the agricultural season performance.”

The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) monitors trends in staple food prices where food security is vulnerable and has watched South Sudan's steady price increase.

Food prices generally begin to rise as food stores begin to decline in April. However, prices have not stopped rising in South Sudan, according to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Kahriman expects the resumption of oil production will result in a decrease in food insecurity, as well as the level of inflation in the country.

Fominyen is not convinced there is a trend between a lack of oil production and the rise in food prices, citing that food prices in South Sudan have always been high.

Data collected by USAID does show prices in South Sudan have been rising since as early as January 2008, even before South Sudan declared its independence and oil production was ceased.

Instead, Fominyen said the border closures between South Sudan and Sudan have caused a spike in food prices. Before the closures and South Sudanese independence, as much as 180,000 metric tons of assorted food reached the markets in South Sudan from or through the north. Fominyen said at least 40-percent of that food was sorghum, a grain high in fat and protein.

"Following the border closures...prices shot up."

Lamwalhok Liah, a South Sudanese citizen says he's watched the price of sorghum steadily rise.

"We observed that food prices, especially sorghum and wheat flour prices, in most areas were double what they were at the same periods last year," said Fominyen.

NGO's Struggle to Keep Up With Demand

Non-profit organizations are struggling to keep up with the demand for food. Kahriman said that CHF international has seen the number of people who require food assistance double from 1.2 to 2.4 million people.

The United Nations WFP office in Sudan, however, said their numbers have decreased since South Sudan split from the north. As many as 10 million people needed aid from the NGO at one once before 2011, but WFP now cares for closer to 4.2 million people in Sudan, according to Amor Almagro.