Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) in cooperation with UNICEF have given Sa’ada children what they were needed most, a chance for better health.

The program, “Community therapeutic care interventions for under (5) children”, targeted 1500 children aiming mainly to decrease infant and young children mortality & morbidity by reducing malnutrition and providing improved quality health & nutrition care delivery services. The CSSW for three months offered its help to those in most need, and those effected greatly by the war in Sa’ada.

Results from the program revealed that the situation for children in Sa’ada is better but is still weak as more help is still needed to insure that health problems decrease and not increase in the region. Abdul Majid Farhan, General Secretary of the CSSW mentioned that Sa’ada children have received the necessary health service they needed and that the government and donors should look at other angles to health those needed in Sa’ada. “There are different ways we can help people in Sa’ada and soon we will have other projects in Sa’ada to help those needed”.

The Yemen Post asked about the help for the homeless and women, and if the CSSW has plans to support them soon in projects he replied, “ We have plans to help them as well and we will announce to the media as soon as the project is launched.”

The program in Sa’ada started by training locals on how to treat the sick children in order for the service to be available long after the program ends. The training aimed to create a qualified staff to train health workers & volunteers in Sa'ada Governorate to take over their responsibility in management of malnutrition cases, particularly in emergencies. Overall nearly 100 locals from Sa’ada received the training.

After the program was conducted, results for actions that took place are as follow:

-Total number of children screened in 1st stage (1029) children under 5 years.

-Total number of children referred to OTP & SFC (151) children under 5 years.

-Total number of children of severe malnutrition referred to OTP & TFC (17) children under 5 years.

-Total number of children screened in 2nd stage at health facilities (102) children under 5 years.

-Total number of acute malnourished children under treatment are (174) children under 5 years.

To help in seeing better results in future programs, health workers & volunteers conducted breast-feeding promotion sessions for mothers in targeted areas. This helped in improving the awareness among mothers as breastfeeding plays a major rule for improving the health situation for children and decrease the spread of malnutrition among children. Breastfeeding remains the only natural inclusive and complex nutrition for newborn babies. It is a method for enhancing the health for infants and for lifetime.

Researchers discovered that malnutrition during the first months of a child age leads to a drop in the child's smartness. They found as well that malnutrition produces hostile tendency that accompanies bottle-fed children during their lifetime.

Other activities that took place by the CSSW were weekly and bimonthly field visits to monitor the activities at health facilities and community carried out by in the districts to ensure that locals are getting the required service.

Yemen is facing currently one of the most dangerous crises of its history as intense and heavy fighting continue between the government of Yemen and thousands of insurgents at Sa'ada, which in result causes health situations for children to decrease by the day. All the 15 districts of Sa'ada which encompasses 700,000 population are involved in this war. It is estimated that 40000 people (the majority of them are children and women) have been enforced to internal displacement. At least 20000 children with their families are settled finally at very poor camps near Sa'ada city while others families are still scattered all over Sa'ada districts particularly Sa'ada city, Sahar, Majz, Alzaher, Shida'a, Baghim and Hiadan districts.