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After joining CINI in October 2004, I made my first field visit to the projects in Kolkata in January 2005. Meeting one-and-a-half-year-old Arubila made a particularly lasting impression on me. He was severely malnourished, not because of a famine or unpredictable natural disaster, but just because his family had become caught up in a vicious cycle of poverty, malnutrition and ill health.
Born underweight, Arubila started life at a disadvantage. His mother was chronically malnourished and found it difficult to breast-feed so she started feeding him animal milk from a bottle at just three months.
Unfortunately, Arubila went on to contract severe diarrhoea and lacked the strength to fight off the infection. His parents dealt with the diarrhoea by feeding him less, as food was just passing straight through him. Arubila’s state became critical. Although his family lived outside the area covered by CINI’s outreach programmes, his grandmother had heard of CINI’s work and brought him to our Emergency Ward for help.
By the time he reached the ward, his condition was potentially life threatening. Unlike the usual elastic nature of children’s skin, his skin was like paper. It wrinkled where his grandmother held him and retained those wrinkles for a few seconds after she released him: a sign of his severe dehydration. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes glazed and unresponsive. When I saw him, I wasn’t sure if he would make it.
However, when I returned three weeks later, I found Arubila had been moved to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre. When the doctor pointed him out, at first I didn’t recognise him he had filled out so much. He was even able to stand on his own two feet.
The immediate crisis was dealt with. However, CINI also sent a healthworker to visit Arubila’s parents to give them the support and advice they needed to prevent a similar situation arising with any of their other children, even though this family lives outside CINI’s usual project area.
Anna Taylor
Director of CINI UK
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