UNICEF Next Generation's Jenna Bush Hager reports from Guatemala on nutrition crisis
UNICEF USA
© U.S. Fund for UNICEF
Young Leadership Ambassador & UNG Chair Jenna Bush Hager in Guatemala.
NEW YORK, USA (March 11, 2010) — Jenna Bush Hager, NBC's Today Show correspondent and longtime supporter of UNICEF, will be reporting on UNICEF's nutrition programs in Guatemala on Friday, March 12.
Bush Hager's segment was shot during a January trip to Guatemala, the country with the highest rate of malnutrition in Latin America. Fully half of all children in Guatemala are malnourished, and the situation is even more critical among indigenous communities, where as many as 80 per cent of children are suffering.
But there is a simple solution, as Bush Hager reports. Home food fortification with a product called "Sprinkles" provides the iron, vitamins, folic acid and Zinc required for healthy physical and cognitive development in children ages 6 months to 5 years.
UNICEF is supplying the government of Guatemala with Sprinkles to counteract rising malnutrition rates resulting from increased food prices. As the chair of UNICEF's Next Generation (Next Gen), a group of young professionals committed to working with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to reduce preventable child deaths, Bush Hager has championed the Sprinkles program. Since its launch in July 2009 Next Gen has raised $175,000 through fundraising and donations for Sprinkles in Guatemala. The funds will be used to purchase Sprinkles for 35,000 children over the course of a year and to support staff, training and monitoring of Sprinkles distribution and effectiveness.
Raising funds above the initial $175,000 Next Generation goal will allow UNICEF to purchase and distribute Sprinkles to more municipalities in Guatemala.
Chronic malnutrition contributes to more than half of all child deaths worldwide. In infants and toddlers the long-term impacts on intelligence and physical capacity are irreversible. The cost of a year's supply of life-saving "Sprinkles" for a child is about $3.50.
Bush Hager has been a leading advocate and spokesperson for UNICEF's work since 2007, when she interned with the organization in Latin America and the Caribbean.
