The smile of Roberta for UNICEF - Project: "Fighting child malnutrition"

As in previous years, this year, the glass room of the Paladiana of the Municipality of Milazzo, in the days from 25 to 27 May 2018, will be the setting for the tenth edition of "The smile of Roberta for UNICEF".

This year's UNICEF project is "Fighting child malnutrition in Cameroon".
Malnutrition has many faces.
That of a child who does not grow tall enough because of poverty, lack of hygiene and medical care, because he is not breastfed or does not have access to sufficiently nutritious foods.
That of a young woman who becomes anemic during pregnancy and gives birth to an underweight child, who later will delay developmental delays.
That of a child made blind by vitamin A deficiency.
That of a child who becomes obese because he consumes foods of poor nutritional quality.
And what we all tend to identify with the very image of malnutrition - a desperately thin and emaciated child, at imminent risk of death by starvation.
In Cameroon 106,000 children die before 5 years of age: 144 children per 1,000 live births, an intolerably high infant mortality rate.
Approximately half of the deaths occur within the first year of life.
The country is grappling with a nutritional crisis that has as its main causes the scarcity of inadequate food and nutritional habits, the lack of essential health services, drinking water and sanitation, and a high rate of underweight births (the result of malnutrition in turn maternal).
The increase in food prices has a devastating impact, since food prices are the main item of expenditure in family budgets.
The rates of malnutrition and child mortality did not show significant improvement between 1990 and today, unlike what happened in most other developing countries, even in the same region.
The situation is particularly serious in the north of the country.
The intervention of UNICEF
UNICEF Cameroon has already initiated the following actions:
• Management on a community basis of acute malnutrition in 29 out of 50 health districts
• Essential package of nutritional interventions (including promotion of breastfeeding and correct weaning practices) in 9 out of 50 health districts
• Children's Health Days (with vitamin A given to children 6-59 months and post-partum and administering vermifuges to children 12-59 months), twice a year
• Definition of national policies for improving child nutrition
The project involves the management on a community basis of cases of malnutrition, with hospitalization in the most serious cases and home care when there are no risks or complications, thanks to the therapeutic food ready for use (RUTF) donated by UNICEF.
UNICEF also plans the distribution of salts for oral and zinc rehydration therapy for the treatment of infantile diarrhea, and a series of health and nutrition information activities in the areas affected by the project.
Breastfeeding and proper maternal nutrition will also be encouraged, controls on vitamin A and iron deficiencies will be intensified in both children and lactating women, and those on iodine deficiency in the entire population.
UNICEF will cooperate with the Government of Cameroon in promoting the mandatory "fortification" of basic foodstuffs - es. flour - with micronutrients (minerals and vitamins), through the exemption from taxes for preparations and equipment, the establishment of monitoring procedures on the quality of products and social communication initiatives aimed at encouraging their consumption by the local population.
What we will do to help them
A collective exhibition will be set up that will directly involve all the participating artists, who will donate one of their paintings.
The presence of numerous artists of many nationalities who have promised to donate their work for the realization of this project, comforts the organizers who hope to repeat the success of previous events.
All the works donated by the artists will be put on sale during the days of the event and all proceeds will be donated to UNICEF and will finance the "" Fight against child malnutrition in Cameroon "project that the Unicef provincial committee of Messina and the Roberta Smedili association have adopted for their activities for the year 2018.
For information and donation paintings.
Roberta's smile for UNICEF - UNICEF Arte
Roberta Smedili Association
Via Gabriele D'Annunzio, 12
98057 Milazzo (ME)
Email robertasmedili@yahoo.it
website http://ilsorrisodiroberta.jimdo.com/
Roberta's smile for UNICEF - Project "Fighting child malnutrition in Cameroon"
Paladiana of the Municipality of Milazzo 25 - 27 May 2018