‘This child was abandoned on Christmas Day’
By: Lidia Wfp Uganda
Tags: Humanitarian, Malnutrition, Uganda, Refugee, Wfp

Two-and-a-half-year-old Uwimanaimpaye mostly goes by this, her second name, which means ‘the one God has given me’. But family and friends in her Oruchinga neighbourhood, in southwestern Uganda, like to cut it short to just Wima.

Her grandmother keeps an exercise book with the toddler’s medical records. The pages show when she was born — 12 August 2016 — and when she was immunized for polio and tuberculosis. Then, when Wima was four-and-a-half months old, health workers at Oruchinga refugee settlement in southern Uganda wrote: ‘This child was abandoned on Christmas Day, 25 December 2016, by her mother. Came (to the health centre) with the (village) chairman. She looks weak with a fever. Body weight: 3.8 kilogrammes…’

Wima’s case is not unusual. Across southern Uganda, poor child care and even abandonment, count among the factors behind stunted growth and life-threatening malnutrition. The phenomenon not only affects the country’s sizeable refugee population, but also local Ugandan families.

A 2018 food and nutrition security survey carried out by WFP and its partners found that nearly one in three children is stunted in southern Uganda’s Isingiro district where Oruchinga settlement is located. The average rate of life-threatening (acute) child malnutrition was also above the alert threshold.

“Too often, women expect other people — their mothers, usually — to raise their children,” says nutritionist Maureen Tusiime with WFP’s nutrition partner Medical Teams International (MTI), who works with refugees and nationals around Oruchinga. “But the grandmothers or caretakers are often poor, with insufficient resources to care for these children.”

A 2018 nutrient gap analysis carried out by WFP and the Ugandan government found that a nutritious diet among refugees costs the equivalent of US$4 per day. US$ a day is hugely expensive for many who depend on support from humanitarian groups such as WFP to get by.

Reasons vary for why women — and men — can neglect their parental duties. But around Oruchinga, many of their children are nonetheless off to a good start. WFP and MTI help boost children’s health and reduce the food burden on caretakers.

The two organizations also sponsor a women’s group of refugees and nationals who help their counterparts at Oruchinga manage malnutrition and practice safe motherhood.

The child given by God

Virginia comes by often to visit Wima and her grandmother in the hills of Oruchinga, monitoring Wima’s health on MTI’s and WFP’s behalf. Photo: WFP/Lydia Wamala

Wima’s mother did not eat healthily during her pregnancy, partly because she did not register with the Ugandan government as a refugee, making her eligible to receive WFP food. She did not know then that she had tuberculosis. She grew extremely weak giving birth. Consequently, Wima came out weighing not more than 3 kilogrammes.

That Christmas day in 2016, Wima’s mother still struggled with hunger. It was a year in which a drought caused severe food shortages in Uganda’s cattle corridor, which stretches from the northern Karamoja region southward to Isingiro district.

Wima’s mother walked away for unknown reasons, leaving her child alone at home. Her paternal grandmother, 70-year-old Perepetua Minirakiza, found the infant crying, hungry and bitten by mosquitoes.

“I thought she would die,” Perepetua recalls. “I did not know what to do, so I called health worker (Virginia) Kamagaju because I knew she belonged to the village health team.”

The two women took Wima to the local village chairman to report the abandonment and the child’s condition. She was taken to the local government health centre and put on a regimen to treat malaria and malnutrition.

A few weeks later, when Wima’s condition improved, she was enrolled in WFP’s mother-and-child health and nutrition programme, which targets pregnant and nursing women and children under two. The programme provides fortified food which protects children from stunting.

Rona’s story