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WFP provides special supplementary food to pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding and young children who require additonal nutrients to stay healthy. In an informal settlement in Kabul, every day many mothers and their young children visit a WFP-supported mobile clinic for treatment and to receive special nutritious food.
KABUL - Twenty-eight-year-old Latifa is a mother of six who lives with her family in an informal settlement southeast of Kabul. She has been suffering from malnutrition for years. However, for the past eight months, WFP has been providing her and her youngest daughters nutritious food in an informal settlement southeast of Kabul.
“I was very weak and could not feed my little daughter. I was losing weight and getting thin," shares Latifa. "We are poor and we have no money to go to a doctor or to buy good food. For eight months now, I have been coming twice a month here and receiving food from WFP. It is very helpful I am getting better and will continue visiting this center until I fully recover.”
Latifa was six months pregnant when she was introduced to the nutrition project. Her youngest daughter Sonia is now two months old and is in good health. “Thank God! I came here and was nursed back to health through this project. Otherwise my baby could have suffered from the same problem,” Latifa says.
Three-year-old Diba, licking the tasty special nutritious food, provided by WFP. Photo: WFP/Wahidullah Amani
Her other three year-old daughter, Diba, is also suffering from malnutrition, and is also receiving WFP food. Like many other kids in the settlement, Diba is given a packet of Plumpy' Sup -- a ready-to-eat enriched peanut paste -- each day which she will continue receive for at least another three and a half months until she's fully recovered.
Another mother, 22-year-old Najiba, says of her two malnourished children, “Both of my sons are very weak, they cannot sit or stand. I have been bringing them here for six months and I can see that they are getting better. At the beginning, none of them could even hold up their heads, now they can and they are gaining weight”.
Najiba and her son. Photo: WFP/Wahidullah Amani
In these types of clinics, women do not only receive nutritional food for themselves and their kids, they also learn how to feed newborns and about proper hygiene.
“I have learned here how to keep myself and my newborn kids clean,” says Latifa. “The doctors also told us that up to six months newborns should only be given mothers milk,” she adds.
