BANGING THE DRUMS!
Former nurse Frances Seth has been volunteering with Save the Children for 20 years. She tells Joanne Offer about her recent visit to Niger.
Monday 4 February 2008
Frances Seth clearly has the gift of the gab. At a lunchtime talk about Save the Children, she persuaded one man to part with a personal cheque for £300! So when we were looking for someone to tell supporters how their money really is saving children's lives, Frances was an obvious choice.
Not that Frances is new to Save the Children: she's been volunteering with us for 20 years as everything from a branch secretary to a shop leader. But what Frances really seems to relish is her role as a Speaking Out volunteer - chatting to people about the injustices facing children today - which we thought was just perfect for our new campaign.
"Experts estimate that malnutrition contributes to more than 50% of child deaths"
In autumn 2007, we invited Frances to see our work in the Zinder region of southern Niger, where hundreds of thousands of families are still struggling with the aftereffects of a severe drought in 2005. It proved to be an emotional trip into an area where many families live from day to day on what little their dry farmland can provide.
Frances admits, "On our first day, we got out of the car at a feeding centre for malnourished children. One of the very first things I saw was a very sick little baby and I got quite upset. I asked one of the staff 'how do you cope with this every day?' "He said these were the lucky ones; you have to remember that these children are now getting help because we're here. So that made me feel good, because we are making that difference."
Volunteer Frances Seth talks with mothers whose babies are suffering from malnutrition in Zakarawa village, Niger.
The impact of the food shortage on children in southern Niger is immense. Without a good-quality diet, young children quickly lose weight, become weak and find it harder to fight disease, especially in rural areas where healthcare facilities are scarce. Simple illnesses like diarrhoea or respiratory infections can become life threatening - in fact experts estimate that, around the
world, malnutrition actually contributes to more than 50% of all child deaths.
"It's shocking really," says Frances. "A week's supply of Plumpy'nut - a special food to feed a sick baby - costs about £7. So for just the price of a couple of sandwiches and a drink at lunchtime, we could save a child's life. For £7, that's one less mortality, that’s one more child who has a future."
In the past year alone, our centres in Zinder and neighbouring Maradi have treated 49,000 malnourished babies and young children. All of them were weighed, measured, given a health check and then provided with the correct special food supplements.
"The feeding centres were like a sea of mothers and babies", says Frances, "but everything was very calm, ordered and organised. That was one of the things that most impressed me: the efficiency. If you had 400 mothers and babies turn up at a clinic in the NHS, it would be chaos!"
"It's amazing. I might sit in the UK in my kitchen at my laptop, but these women are living in abject poverty and yet they still find the time to help"
One of the crucial aspects of the centres is that they explain everything step by step to the mothers who have brought their children for treatment. Nothing is written down. Instead, staff demonstrate how to prepare the food supplements safely and hygienically.
As an extra safety net, we've also trained female volunteers in villages near the centres, so mothers can go to them for further information. These volunteers have played a vital role in changing attitudes around malnutrition, so mothers now feel comfortable going for advice, rather than hiding any problems because of misplaced embarrassment or guilt.
The volunteers can also be pro-active, monitoring their village for babies or children who may be malnourished. If such a case arises, the volunteer will place a colour-coded tape measure around the infant's upper arm and, if the tape slides into the red section, then the volunteer will refer them to the nearest feeding centre.
"Those women are amazing," says Frances of her fellow volunteers. "I hadn't realised that Save the Children uses volunteers in Niger too, but it's amazing. I might sit in the UK in my kitchen at my laptop, but these women are living in abject poverty and yet they still find the time to help. Some of them even walk for two hours to the feeding centres, just to make sure the mothers get the help they need."
It's this determination and sense that things can change for the better, that Frances has brought back with her to the UK. She's already been out talking to national journalists, schools and other volunteers about what she saw in Niger. You may have even seen her in a special "thank you" DVD made to show Save the Children supporters just one way in which their money is saving children's lives.
"I don't think we bang the drum loudly enough about what we do," says Frances about Save the Children. "We should be out there shouting to people much more about what we do. If we want people to sit up and notice us, we need to say 'this is the difference we've made' and be proud of it."
So what's the message that Frances wants us to get out there? "I was just so impressed with how things work," she says. "You could actually see how the money was being spent and the changes we were making. You can't change everything in five minutes, but there is a chance for long term improvement with Save the Children's healthcare work and plans for education. The more people we can tell about it the better!"
If you would like to see more of Frances' fact finding mission to Zinder in Niger, you can watch a short video.
