Responding to Hunger in Northern Ghana

This month, Sister Rita Owusu-Amponsaa is overjoyed to announce that she has secured two small grants, including one from the German Embassy in Accra, which will be used to save lives in the villages surrounding Kulmasa in Northern Ghana. Here, tribal clashes in the district earlier this year, mostly between the Gonja and Birfor peoples, have led to thousands fleeing their homes and villages for safety.  The conflict happened at the peak of the harvest season as a result of which many people lost their harvests completely or partially. Those engaged in animal rearing also lost most of their livestock. 

Sister Rita explains that Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District was already one of the poorest in Ghana, with recurring food insecurity, even in years with a good harvest.  There never seems to be quite enough food to go round, with food rationed throughout the year.  Almost every year, malnutrition quickly grips children at the end of the dry season.  This, in turn, has resulted in many cases of stunted growth and development in childhood, well above the national average.

Having tackled malnutrition among children and other vulnerable groups, when they first arrived in the villages, MMS’ public health team are well equipped to respond to the current crisis through an emergency food support programme. In particular, they aim to: purchase and distribute food items to affected households; scale up an ongoing Weanimix project to fortify diets and nutrition; and initiate an in-house feeding programme for patients on admission to the Holy Family Polyclinic, Kulmasa.

Weanimix is a highly nutritious porridge that local women help to prepare by grinding and mixing locally available farm ingredients - notably maize, groundnuts and soya beans - as you can see opposite. 

Some years ago, Medical Mission Sister, Miriam Therese Winter, wrote this moving song, Heavenly Father, about children crying out for bread.  You can listen to it opposite.