World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Three years after the earthquake, there are fewer tents, fewer people at the site of the old military airport in Port-au-Prince. Many have found a roof to put over their heads, but thousands are still living between abandoned old planes and helicopters.
 

Rousselene Jean is hoping to leave the site that became her home three years ago. With her aunt and her baby, Dawensly, she shares a shack built with found materials and covered with old tarpaulins. Her baby was born a few months ago and she breastfeeds him. Little Dawensly is chubby and looks healthy.

 

“Without the help I get, it would be hard to have enough to eat,” Rousselene says, referring to the nutritional supplements from WFP she has been receiving since she found out she was pregnant. The porridge made of fortified corn soya flour blend, sugar and oil that she eats every day continues to make a big difference
 

“I would have never guessed that it would still be like that 3 years after the quake,” says Anne-Rose Saint-Preux, one of the people in charge of the health centre managed by FONDEFH, a local health organization supported by WFP, UNICEF and others. “It’s always crowded.”

 

This health centre was set up quickly after the earthquake to provide basic health services free of charge to the thousands of displaced people. When she thinks about all that’s been accomplished since 2010, one of the first things that comes to her mind is that the nutritional status of children, pregnant or breastfeeding mothers has improved.
 

Sylvania Nelson is living proof that access to services and sensitization work. She is due to give birth to her second child in a few weeks and has been eating the nutritional supplements provided by WFP since the beginning of her pregnancy. She is also the mother of Erika, a healthy three-year old girl who receives a fortified peanut paste designed specifically to prevent malnutrition.