This is Marion with her daughter, Tinah. Marion is a health care worker that has been assisting in the nutrition program in Taninahun. She is also working part time in the Taiama UMC Health Center.

Marion was previously a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) in Taiama for sixteen years. SHE HAS DELIVERED 575 BABIES!! She explained to us that she has kept a record of each child. One of the reasons Sierra Leone has the highest infant/mother mortality rate is because women in labor would prefer going to TBA's rather than hospitals to deliver their babies. TBA's are trusted women in the village who usually have had the responsibility of delivering babies passed down from generation to generation from the mother to the daughter. The problem is that there are so many TBA's, unlike Marion, that have received no training. The only training they have received is the experience their mothers were able to pass on to them through experience. While this experience is valuable, there are still many things that can go wrong in a delivery. Taiama is one of the clinics where TBA training has begun. All the TBA's in Taiama also have a cell phone. If there is a complication in delivery, then the TBA can call the Taiama Head Nurse, Christiana, for assistance. This simple development plus the training is saving countless children and mothers. Hopefully, with the training, there will be more TBA's like Marion who will be able to tell their stories of many, many successful deliveries.

Njala Health Center pictures

Two of the nurses, Catherine and Anthony, screening a child. You can tell how much he likes being on that scale! Mike training Nurse Josephine on the enrollment process

Patients outside Njala Health Center waiting to be screened

Njala Health Center and general updates

The past couple of weeks we have been training 6 health care workers to extend Project Peanut Butter to the Njala Health Center. Last Wednesday was the first clinic day, and we had so many people come with their children. The health care staff did an excellent job! They screened about 75 children and enrolled 43 in the program.

Our other two clinics, Taninahun and Taiama, also went really well. The number of children are growing at each of our clinic sites. The mothers are coming with their children from farther and farther away. This means the word is spreading about the nutrition program! We had a couple serious cases of edema (swelling) with some of the children at Taiama and Taninahun. These children's edema had completely disappeared! What a blessing! The mom's are doing a great job.

There is a short term UMVIM team coming to Taiama at the end of December. The nurses are getting excited for the team's arrival! They are already spreading the word for everyone from the villages to come to the clinic on the dates the team will be there.

We leave in a little over two weeks to go back to the U.S. for Christmas! Until then, we are making a little over one ton of RUTF in order to stock up each clinic's supply and working with our contractor in building the factory.