Playing games to forget hunger
There’s no hiding the love and adoration between the brothers. Leolida rushes home from school to see Lawrence, scooping him up in his arms as soon as he sees him.
“I hold him up, sometimes I carry him up and when I see he is happy, I put him down, then I clap my hands and he does the same. Those are really good games.” The feeling is mutual. Lawrence perks up when Leolida is around, smiling and laughing.
Leolida believes that playing helps to distract Lawrence from his hunger. “He is not hungry when you play with him, he is just happy,” he says.
Stopping the pain of hunger
But Leolida is afraid for his little brother. He knows Lawrence is getting sicker. He is severely malnourished, has diarrhoea, a fever and is half the weight of a healthy baby his age.
“I felt so bad and I asked God to have mercy … and heal him.”
Lawrence needs life-saving treatment. The remote location of their village means they would have to make a long journey on foot to reach the nearest health facility.
But the pain of hunger can be stopped.
Thanks to generous supporters, community health volunteers like Mark have been trained by Save the Children to bring health care to remote villages. Mark can identify and treat malnourished children like Lawrence.
Mark measures Lawrence’s Middle Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) with a simple tool called the MUAC band. The band comes out red, and he knows Lawrence is severely malnourished.