Chad: Villages Organize Themselves Against Malnutrition

Mahamad Adam stands proudly in front of the store under his charge. It’s a single room between four walls of dried mud and eaves made of cut branches that provide a little shade. Inside are stocks of enriched peanut paste, a product that has proven to be effective for tackling child malnutrition.

Adam is a community health agent who spends several hours each week looking for and prescribing the precious substance to children with severe acute malnutrition in his village of Michetire and the surrounding area, some 100 kilometers [60 miles] north of N’Djamena, the capital. He is one of roughly 10 community health agents in western Chad’s Hadjer Lamis region, part of a system established by MSF in collaboration with the country’s Ministry of Health.

MSF is now trying to convince the inhabitants to directly support the community health agents who, until now, have received millet, sorghum or oil from MSF in return for their service, but no money. “To make the system sustainable, the communities must organize themselves and look after the agents,” said Ibrahim Halidou, who is in charge of external activities for MSF.
Photo: Chad 2011 © Natacha Buhler

A malnourished child and his mother sit in MSF’s intensive therapeutic feeding center (ITFC) in Massakory.