Children are no longer dying from
starvation in the shantytowns on the banks of the Sali River.
Kids in Argentina's poorest province no longer hunger victims
One year ago, amid Argentina's worst economic crisis in 200 years,
toddlers began showing up at the children's hospital in northwestern
Tucuman province, the country's poorest, with sunken faces and distended
bellies. One by one, at least 13 died.
Today, national and international aid pours into the province,
ensuring that children aren't going hungry anymore. Argentina, after
all, is a vast and fertile country that produces three times more food
than it consumes.
Yet the poverty and unemployment remain. Nearly half of the
province's 1.3 million people do not earn enough to meet their basic
needs. Infant mortality is on the rise. School dropout and teen
pregnancy rates among the poor are soaring.
Signs of how much, and how little, has changed since last year can be
seen in a slum just east of the provincial capital with the unfortunate
name of La Milagrosa, the Miraculous. Like dozens of other slums lining
the Sali River, it is the settling point for the families of farm
laborers who lost their jobs in the provinces depressed sugar industry. The small area has accounted for one in three of the children treated
for severe malnutrition in the province.
Families there huddle together in cinder block houses with corrugated
tin roofs and survive by picking through trash and collecting government
handouts. The stench of rancid river water and rotting trash mingles
with the syrupy smell of sugar cane from refineries upstream.
La Milagrosa has benefited from the newfound attention to
malnutrition. The slum has a busy children's soup kitchen, or comedor,
that after years of struggling for support now each weekday feeds 250
neighborhood kids. On a recent Friday, it served 50 pounds of spaghetti,
25 pounds of meat sauce and 10 pounds of pudding for dessert.
---
Comedores like the one in La Milagrosa are at the heart of the local
strategy to eradicate hunger in Tucuman, and they have become ubiquitous
in the province. The Red Cross of Argentina estimates that 500
government-supported comedores operate in Tucuman, while hundreds more
survive on private donations.
The flood of food has filled bellies and the children have stopped
dying. Provincial health officials, still smarting from months of
outside scrutiny and allegations that they mishandled the malnutrition
crisis, can now say with relief that the starvation crisis has subsided.
“Were finally finding some peace after all the chaos,” said Evelina
Chapman, director of social programs for the Tucuman health department. But Chapman added that this outside generosity has brought new
problems: An entire generation of River Sali children is growing up
depending on the comedores for their daily meals.
“I don't eat at home,” 10-year-old Pablo Galarce said
matter-of-factly as he spooned spaghetti into his mouth, red sauce
smearing a cheek. Pablo said he has never eaten a meal with his family.
---
For those fighting malnutrition on the front lines, the bleakness of
Pablo's prospects can be heart-wrenching.
“A thousand times I have left here crying, promising that I wont come
back,” said Wilma Hortencia Rivero, who founded La Milagrosa's soup
kitchen in 1984. “But the pull to be here is stronger than I am.”
The wave of children dying from starvation last year arrived in the
wake of a foreign debt default, hyperinflation and a banking crisis.
Then-first lady Hilda Duhalde launched an assistance campaign dubbed
“Operation Rescue.” Money and food poured in from donors in Argentina
and Europe and the United States.
A year later, while the national economic crisis is easing, the local
malnutrition problem remains: This spring, one in 20 Tucuman children
was diagnosed as underweight for their age.
The province's children's hospital is chronically understaffed, short
on diapers and lacks equipment to measure the level of blood nutrients -
crucial to treating malnutrition.
“Because of the rapid response, people have started to eat again. But
I don't know if the core issues have improved,” Argentine Red Cross
development director Adriana Enrico said.
By Daniel A. Grech
9 October 2003
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/6961470.htm
home
|