Social Issue

Recent trends in the country are leading to increased food insecurity and malnutrition. For more than two years, Haiti has been experiencing an unprecedented security crisis. In 2022, some 200 armed gangs spread their control throughout the country, mainly in the capital, causing extortion, homicides and the highest number of kidnappings in the world. Citizen insecurity, together with inflation and rising food prices, eroded the purchasing power of vulnerable households and generated the worst food crisis the country has suffered in the last decade. Of Haiti’s 11.4 million inhabitants, 4.5 million were food insecure in 2022 and 259,000 children required nutritional assistance.

Our Response

The nutritional recovery program has the following objectives:

• Stabilization of the vital signs of the neonate, infant or child. This is a critical stage in which the child’s life is in danger and he/she remains hospitalized.
• Nutritional recovery of the child, who remains in the hospital, in which solid foods are progressively introduced and nutritional education is worked on with the family.
• Outpatient follow-up to monitor the child’s evolution and prevent possible relapses. At the same time, vaccinations, medicines, x-rays and analyses are administered to assess the child’s state of health.

Managed by Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs, the local partner of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos in Haiti, this project helps to combat the alarming rate of malnutrition among the Haitian child population, where 1 in 10 children die of malnutrition.

Fundación Netri has been supporting the nutritional program at St. Damien’s Hospital since 2007.

Expected Social Impact

With this grant, we contributed to the medical-nutritional treatment and recovery of 90 Haitian babies and children who were in poor health due to malnutrition.