19 August 2010
Twenty-nine-year-old Amy Reed is part of a Save the Children emergency response team in Niger that is treating children affected by the worsening food crisis.
With the support of UKaid from the Department for International Development (DFID), UN agencies and charities like Save the Children are able to distribute food aid, treat children with acute malnutrition and provide seeds for planting.
Amy's work as an emergency communications officer has taken her to a UKaid funded rehabilitation centre in Aguié, where children suffering from severe malnutrition are receiving life saving treatment.
Here she describes the current situation in Niger and talks about life as a humanitarian worker.
"I've never seen so many malnourished children before. People have difficulty accessing food here, even in a normal year. But there was very erratic rainfall at the end of 2009 which meant that the harvest last year was very poor.
People began running out of food a lot earlier than usual and, until the new crops are ready, more and more people run out of food everyday. There has also been an increase in food prices which makes it impossible for people to afford food that's been imported.
We're expecting that 300,000 children across Niger will suffer from severe malnutrition this year and nationwide 140,000 have already been treated.
Barely conscious
You see extreme poverty everywhere here. Houses are made of straw, wood, red mud. They're very basic structures. Agriculture is small scale and nothing is mechanised – it's people and oxen and ploughs and hoes. There are huge problems with things like water and sanitation.
During the food crisis I've spent time at a rehabilitation centre for severely malnourished children in Aguié. It's a professional health centre staffed by doctors and nurses who specialise in treating malnourished children with complications, and it's something which the DFID supports through the West Africa Humanitarian Response Fund (WAHRF).
I see children being brought in and they are so incredibly weak. Some children are barely conscious and they don't have the strength to hold their heads up. They can't always focus. You see children who are five years old but they're the size of a two year old in the UK and they're so thin.
There are mothers who don't think their child will survive the journey to the health centre. They're put in a horrific situation - they won't take their child to a centre because they can't leave their other children for a child who they don’t believe will survive. But when we hear these stories we can help - we have cars that we can send out to collect the children and bring them into the centre, and we're working to get further into the communities so families know that Save the Children is nearby and can help.
Medical checks and miracles
The DFID funded centre in Aguié has capacity for about 130 children. It's quite a basic building. Inside it's very clean and the windows have shutters over them to block out insects and the heat of the sun. There are rows of white beds and each bed has a mosquito net hanging above it. Mothers stay with their children while they're receiving treatment and share the bed with their baby.
The doctors do a full medical check when the children first arrive and prescribe the course of treatment for their stay. Each day they have a full medical assessment in the morning and the nurses are there 24 hours a day in case of any emergencies.
The health centres are really miraculous places. It's incredible - children come in on the edge of life and then a week or two weeks later they're sitting up and laughing and playing. They gain weight and energy so quickly. It's amazing.
UKaid from DFID helps to fund some of the medical teams at centres like Aguié, as well as some of the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supplies. The things you need to keep a health centre going really.
Across Niger about 6000 children are being brought into malnutrition programmes each week. But these centres are an emergency response to malnutrition. In the long term we need to catch malnutrition at an earlier level. By the time the children are at hospitalisation stage, it's much more difficult to save their lives and much more expensive to do so.
From emergency to emergency
I've been in Niger for a month and Save the Children has been here for five years. I'm generally sent out to wherever an emergency is taking place for about one to three months and then I have a week or two off in the UK for debriefs or retraining. 
Then I'm sent off to the next place. Before coming to Niger I was in DR Congo for three months and before that I was in India for six months.
There's a real humanitarian worker community. You meet people who you worked with during a different crisis and in that way you start making some very good friends and developing a strong support network - the people around you are part of a world that looks strange if you're in the UK but looks normal to you.
Somewhere like the centre in Aguié – where the really desperately ill children are – seeing the children almost come back to life, it gives you massive hope and faith in what can be done in situations like these. It also gives you faith and hope in the people in the world around you. And from a personal perspective it means that you're always learning. Every day something different happens and you learn something new. It's a really challenging and rewarding job."
View our picture gallery to find out more about the crisis in Niger and to see how basic treatment at a feeding centre can save a child's life:
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