Malnutrition ‘ugliest form of child abuse’

Hayward Sagembo with the children at The Center.

Children form a long queue at The Center's Saturday soup
kitchen where a special lunch meal is served, courtesy of individuals who sponsored the day's food.

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
A Friend of Tembari Children Center (TCC) Inc

“MALNUTRITION is child abuse in disguise. It is child abuse in its ugliest form.” This was stressed by Rishabh Bhandari, Founder and Co-President of Tembari Children Care Inc., in a remark during a special feeding session for some 60 orphans and abandoned children at ATS Oro Settlement at Seven Mile on Christmas Eve.

“Their missing out on the basic balanced meal and adequate healthcare is the ugliest form of child abuse … this cruelty must stop,” Rishabh said.

He further said “lack of proper nutrition, which could either be malnourishment or malnutrition, makes a child dull; and this could later affect his intellect as a person.”

Rishabh said “Our six year old TCC continued to struggle with funds to buy food for the 78 deprived children under the care of TCC. Whatever (measly) funding we receive goes straight to the food budget, which means we can’t afford to use it on other equally-pressing concerns like paying our volunteers’ allowances, especially those who teach our kids how to read and write.”

The 78 kids are fed once four times a week and each feeding is allotted only with K40 from the total K800 monthly support received from WeCare! and Pacific Towing Ltd, taken together. In other words, under this budget, there is only K0.51 for each child per meal.

Rishabh further said, “We’re only a small, unknown entity but we got a big heart for our orphans and abandoned children. We are just a small tree in a wild jungle that we are almost unseen in the dark. We are practically fighting against big, known charity groups or care groups for the attention of institutional donors and funding entities.”

Hayward Sagembo, Co-Founder and Director of Tembari Children Care also spoke on the occasion. He said, “our being ignored alone by aid donors further worsens the abuse our children suffer.” He appealed to sponsors and donors to come forward and help relieve the orphanage of its healthcare problems. Providing the children with decent meals was one area that aid donors could look into, and maybe consider, for permanent assistance, he said.

Hayward also thanked the growing number of individuals who are willingly sponsoring Saturday lunches for the TCC kids, in response to Rishabh’s and Freddie’s email requests.