Saving the malnourished souls of D’kar
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Friday August 29, 2025 12:22
A two-year-old old baby named Edward in D’kar was last year enrolled into a feeding scheme programme supported by UNICEF Botswana after health officers realised he was grossly underweight. This was caused by the fact that his now deceased mother had underlying health issues and could not breast-feed her son.
Mmegi is withholding for privacy and protection purposes.
Giving an update on the boy's progress recently, nurse Thabiso Mhlauli said when enrolling Frank into the feeding programme, he only weighed less than six kilogrammes and their target was go get him up to seven. Fortunately, he said they achieved their goal within two weeks. The child was given Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) aimed at combating acute malnutrition among children.
'The aim was to give all malnourished children again under five years this nutrition that many here call peanut butter due to its nutty flavour,” he said. “Fortunately, Frank's family was understanding, cooperative and willing. “He was also advantaged by the fact that he was the only under five in the family and therefore did not share his RUTF nutrition with anyone unlike in other households where children have to share theirs. “When he graduated, we enrolled him under the food basket initiative and he was also given supplemental milk till he reached a certain age.”
Furthermore, Mhlauli explained that the RUTF supplement has been given to other malnourished people with underlying health conditions and pregnant women. For instance, he said health authorities had an 18-year-old who was enrolled last year when she was 17 years old. The teenager had other underlying health issues and was under weight. She could not eat and at the time weighed 26kgs.
The target was to raise her weight to 39kgs and after being administered the RUTF, she grew stronger and improved her weight.
D'kar, is a settlement in Ghanzi District located 40 kilometres e east of the district capital, Ghanzi. The population of about 2,500 is amongst those hardest hit by malnutrition in the country.
This settlement’s residents comprise Basarwa (the San tribe) and is governed by the Dutch Reformed Church. D’kar is mostly dusty and has a lot of sand, with just a gravel road, running through.
Due to abject poverty, most families have little to no food and this affects their feeding routines. It has been established that some of the households even go for a day or more without eating.
Even though the government, through the social welfare food basket initiative, tries to ensure that marginalised communities have enough food supply, it is also reported that some households sell or even trade their food for alcohol, exposing their children to malnutrition.
Mhlauli, who was speaking during a recent engagement hosted by UNICEF, said most Basarwa communities suffer from malnutrition due to different factors such as poverty, lifestyle and others. In most cases, expectant mothers are under weight and also gave birth to similarly underweight children. While it is common that women gain more weight in pregnancy, this is not the case with most of the Basarwa women in settlements such as D'kar.
According to Mhlauli, children under five account for 18% of D’kar population of 2,500. Malnutrition in the settlement surpasses the national average and is driven by factors such as unemployment and the attendant poverty. When disease outbreaks such a diarrhoea occur, many children with malnutrition are at greater risk of higher mortality rates and other opportunistic diseases.
'Poverty also lead to social ailments such as Gender-based violence,” Mhlauli said. “It also causes issues of defilement where we see children having children and as we all know, a child cannot properly take care of another child. “We also see many mother's falling pregnant whilst still breast-feeding and therefore end up being forced to wean them. “This also contributes to the unborn children being born with malnutrition.”
The nurse added that health authorities have noted high tuberculosis statistics in the settlement, which is believed to be linked to communities crowding in rooms.
“TB also leads to loss of weight and therefore contributes to malnutrition. “We need serious interventions to teach the Basarwa communities how to live well. “We cannot entirely take them from their indigenous culture but there are some cultural practices that they need to do away with,' Mhlauli said.
For his part, D'kar Health Assistant, Posthenyo Kamane, said malnutrition has always been a pressing issue in the settlement, with high numbers of children being born with the condition annually.
In January 2025, health authorities received a total attendance of 353 children coming for their monthly scaling, where it was noted that 14.8% of them were underweight. Within that percentage, most of the children had different underlying conditions.
'At other times we receive a very low attendance of children because our children are mobile. “Most of them stays at the farms and sometimes when there are no food rations because the government has not provided any, parents do not bring them for scaling. “Every month we target around 450 children and in most cases we fail to reach the target.”
Kamane said as the first officer to check the children when they come for scaling, he assesses height and weight for age which helps us determine the child's growth. Authorities also visit homesteads where it has been noted food security is a problem.
“We do our best to teach mothers about the importance of feeding their children proper diets but there are challenges. “When the parents have food, they share the little they have with everyone. “If they have food that could last them two weeks they end up sharing with passers-by and end up with supplies for only a few days,' he said.
Kamane added that lack of employment also contributes to parents not being able to buy prescribed supplements for their children.
D'kar councillor, Xukuri Xukuri, who is amongst the few Basarwa in the area to have made it to tertiary education level, extended his gratitude towards UNICEF and its partners, the Botswana Red Cross Society and Japan Embassy in Botswana, for their continued support and good gesture in helping to protect the children of D'kar. He urged UNICEF and its partners to continue supporting the children and people of D'kar and also called upon them to continue sustaining their existing aid to the community.
Authorities say besides greater food assistance, more intense educational campaigns around malnutrition are required in the area, alongside the creation of opportunities for Basarwa, particularly the youth, as a way of supressing harmful behaviour such as alcohol abuse.
The Children's Act of 2009 establishes the rights of children and the structures to protect their well-being, which includes the right to health and protection from neglect. This includes the right to adequate food, as neglect is defined as failing to provide adequate food for a child.
UNICEF supports the Botswana government in strengthening health systems, improving service quality, and implementing nutrition programs, including those focused on preventing stunting as well as improving infant and young child feeding practices.