Please pray for a little boy in the ASELSI Milk Program named Walter Alejandro. He is 1 year and 1 month old and only weighs 11 pounds and 12 ounces. He drinks watered down milk and other oatmeal type drinks throughout the day because his mom is trying to stretch the powered milk that ASELSI gives her further.
At ASELSI we give about 33% of the milk that each baby/child needs each month to allow for more children to be in the milk program. The mom told us that she is not buying him any extra milk after what ASELSI gives her runs out because she can’t afford it.
Walter’s mom, Micaela, is 35 years old and has seven children. Both Micaela and her husband have never been to school, which is not uncommon here among the Mayan Indians, who make up 90% of the population of Guatemala. Her husband makes 40 Quetzales a day, which is about $5.19 a day. He works six days a week and it’s common that men like him often have multiple weeks each year without work while they wait for their bosses to need them again.
At ASELSI we just started giving Walter extra milk and will continue to do so in hopes that he will gain weight and survive.
Walter has been in the ASELSI program since he was 1 month old, but without the family supplementing what ASELSI gives him, he is only just surviving, but not thriving like what we want to see happen with these little ones.
On the first of May we should see Little Walter again and be able to evaluate how the extra milk is helping this little one grow and see what more we can do to keep this little boy alive.
~ Chrisi
Hi Chrisi,
How does the ASELSI milk program work? Is it powdered milk or donated milk from other breast feeding mothers?
Elly,
Since the reason most of the moms have children in the milk program due to a lack of maternal milk, we have to supplement with formula and (for the older kids) powered milk and cereals. Very few, if any, of these moms have refrigerators to keep liquid milk cold. Of course, we know breast milk is best, but these moms would not be in the program if they had the nutrition they need and enough milk to provide for their little ones. Thanks for asking!