The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) office in Haiti has launched a nutritional supplemental program for children between the ages of 6 and 12 in Diquini, Carrefour, Haiti.

According to United Nations reports, Haiti has the worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant in the world, with Haitians consuming an average of only 460 kilocalories each per day. At the nutrition program inauguration ceremony held on May 30, 2006, Fritz Bissereth, country director for the ADRA Haiti office, emphasized the importance of the program that provides each child with 1,250 kilocalories daily.

Bissereth explained that children enrolled in the program are monitored to ensure healthy weight gain. Each child also receives a personal hygiene kit, along with training in social etiquette and proper hygiene.

In addition, parents receive assistance through ADRA Haiti’s credit program to open small businesses and generate income. Once parents are able to better provide for their families and meet their nutritional needs, the children “graduate” from the nutrition program. As children exit the program, other children enter. Thus, the program allows for a process that will produce continuous and far-reaching positive change in the local community.

“The parents and teachers . . . anxiously await when the children will leave the program in good health, saved from malnutrition, tuberculosis, kwashiorkor [a form of malnutrition], and all the other poverty-related diseases that have been devouring Haiti for too long now,” said Bissereth. “With the financial security that our micro-credit program helps parents achieve, we are assured that in the next 10 to 20 years the beneficiaries will be proud citizens of Haiti serving their country in a wide spectrum of jobs.”

More than 100 children currently benefit from the program, which is financed by the gifts of private donors through ADRA’s Original Really Useful Gift Catalog. The 14-month program is valued at US$28,339 (€ 22,700).

ADRA has been working in Haiti since 1975, gaining recognition on the island nation for its food program and child survival projects. ADRA Haiti has also been active in credit programs. During 2004 and 2005, ADRA completed aid projects in Haiti totaling more thanUS$2,700,000 (€ 2,162,200), with nearly one million beneficiaries.

ADRA is present in 125 countries, providing community development and emergency management without regard to political or religious association, age, or ethnicity.