Sometimes, when I’m showing people in America photos of people in the South African village of iNzinga where our nonprofit focuses, they have questions about malnutrition. The people in iNzinga don’t look emaciated. Some of them are even a bit heavy. How can they be malnourished when they don’t look like the kids I see on news reports and in ads for aid programs? It seems many of people in the US have just one image of hunger in Africa; the oft-seen image of children starving to death.
As Nicholas Kristof notes in his recent NY Times article, “one of the great Western misconceptions is that severe malnutrition is simply about not getting enough to eat. Often it’s about not getting the right micronutrients — iron, zinc, vitamin A, iodine.” Something he calls the “hidden hunger,” because often, like many people I share photos with, malnourished people may initially look healthy. The reality is their lack of nutrients results in learning disabilities, disease susceptibility, and even stunting; all of the conditions that keep them in chronic poverty. In the poor rural areas of South Africa like iNzinga, this malnutrition is widespread. So is long-term poverty.
More from the Kristof article: “That image of a starving child in a famine doesn’t represent the magnitude of the problem,” notes Shawn Baker of Helen Keller International, a New York-based aid group working in this area. “For every child who is like that, you have 10 who are somewhat malnourished and many more who are deficient in micronutrients. Lack of iron is the most widespread nutrition deficiency in the world, and yet you can’t really see it,” he added.
There are many ways to combat this hidden hunger that should be easy. One Kristof points out is to fortify flour with the same kind of nutrients they are fortified with in the US, which costs “virtually nothing”. Another way to stave of this “hidden hunger” is to get some fresh vegetables to people every day. The best way to do this is for them to grow those vegetables themselves, locally. And this leads to the second most common question I hear when I talk to people about Isipho: Why don’t they garden?
The answer is both simple and complex. Living on less than $2/day as most poor South Africans do, it would take one month of income to buy a hoe or shovel. It would take several months of income to buy fencing to keep out invading animals. It would take a couple of day’s worth of food to buy starter seeds. When the average person eats a couple meals of beans and corn meal per day, it is impossible to make these investments, so very, very few grow their own vegetables.
After so many years of this situation, if someone gave them fencing, tools, and seeds, they would still lack the gardening education to be successful.
So, our food program in iNzinga is designed to give families who can grow their own vegetables everything they need to do so, including gardening education through our partner Cedara College of Agriculture. They get one chance to take advantage of this offer to better their own lives. And, in exchange, they then have to mentor their neighbors as we expand the program to provide more family gardens. With one investment in a complete solution we can stop the “hidden hunger” in this village permanently in a self-sustaining manner.
As Kristof says in summing up his article, “None of this is glamorous, but it’s hugely needed – and truly a bargain.”
