TODDLER FOOD PARTNERS

Helping malnourished children.

Toddler Food

Partnering with doctors and nutritionists, who have developed a recipe for a nutritious food using readily available local ingredients, Toddler Food Partners designs and provides the equipment and training so local community work groups can produce this shelf stable product themselves.   Two things make this possible.

 

1.  The development of ready-to-use therapeutic foods that do not require mixing with water or refrigeration after mixing.  While these are not significant problems in cities or at large feeding centers, they are major obstacles for families in villages without electrical power or safe water.  Previously, rural mothers had to be away from their families for weeks at a time to get treatment for their babies at a centralized clinic.  European manufacturers can now produce and ship ready-to-use therapeutic foods to areas where they are needed.

2.  Community-based health care as a more sustainable model for long-term effectiveness. With ready-to-use foods, treating, and even preventing, malnutrition is now possible at community centers, rather than at large centralized facilities.  This has many advantages for the affected families and their communities.  But the commercially produced food supplements are too costly for routine use in rural villages, especially for prevention of malnutrition.

 

TODDLER FOOD PARTNERS solves this problem by training and equipping local women’s work groups to make the food supplements right in their own villages using equipment that does not require electricity. Typical ingredients are peanuts, sugar, dried milk, and vegetable oil, all obtainable in most countries.  The work groups supply the food to a local health care worker who gets it to the right children and monitors their recovery.

The result is that local women are employed to safely make food supplements that have been proven effective in preventing and treating severe malnutrition that is common in children after weaning.  While severely sick children still need to be treated by more qualified health professionals, the more routine cases can be treated locally on an “out-patient” basis.