The OnLLLine Chronicle: News from La Leche League International
Issue #13, September 2003
Update from LLL Colombia, by Eugenia Ramírez
I have been working for the past three months in very remote areas of my country. My country is Colombia, where 15.6% of children under five are chronically malnourished, diarrhea, respiratory infection and infant death because of malnutrition are common. All these are preventable by breastfeeding. My work as an LLL Leader takes on new meaning, and a new urgency.
For these children, breastfeeding represents the difference between life and death. To be able to reproduce our work in some of these remote areas could be what keeps many of these children alive. In one of our small villages, Carlos, a rural health educator tells me how only one week a go a two month old baby had died of malnutrition. His mother did not breastfeed because she said she had no milk, and because of her lack of resources was feeding the child strained banana from her garden and rice water.
What made this mother forget that nature had given her the ability to produce the most perfect food for her son? How is it possible that our species, that considers itself superior, has forgotten the ancient art of breastfeeding? All the inferior species do this so naturally and instinctually and their young receive nourishment without the need for a class, instruction or support.
Could it be that our evolutionary process increasingly pulls us away from our essence, as we gain technology and scientific advances we loose the basic and fundamental aspects that keep our species alive? What is the missing link in this chain that should guarantee our survival?
I ask myself this and many other questions and it brings me to the realization of the importance of my job, of our job in LLL. I feel that we are not enough for all the needs out there.
It is urgent that we take
our message to more and more people every day, and that our work is replicated, not only by the mothers that could be potential Leaders in their communities, but by all people, by men and women who also want to add their contribution to build a better tomorrow. To build a chain that allows for us to recover the culture of breastfeeding and to be able to pass on the art of breastfeeding from one generation to the next.
It has been a beautiful work
these last three months. Work that was done by LLL of Medellin and the young volunteers from "Cultura Lactea" (Lactation culture) of the University of Antioquia. We trained almost 600 people in 26 communities in order to duplicate the work of LLL. The results are so promising that we have been asked to come back and work with 45 more communities in our region. How wonderful that at last the government has recognized that there is no other factor that protects the health of mothers and babies at such a low cost as breastfeeding!
Eugenia goes on to explain
that her country has developed a plan for Food Security that is being implemented regionally. The plan is broken down into six strategic "axis" and one of them has to do with health. The first strategy in this axis is promoting breastfeeding. It is a very large project that has the support of the government and several national and international organizations. Antioquia, where Eugenia lives is one of the more advanced regions and their plan is called "MANA" (Mejoramiento Alimentario y Nutricional de Antioquia : Improving Feeding and Nutrion of Antioquia). She says that just yesterday the World Health Organization did an evaluation of the plan and were so impressed they want to replicate it in many other countries that need to take action in order to stop malnutrition in their populations. They congratulated all the participants in the plan and promised financial support to continue the work.
postscript from Norma Escobar
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:33:51 UTC 2007.
