We're aiming to raise $50,000 by this Friday (10/15) to help respond to a malnutrition crisis and food shortage. Will you chip in today? >>

Friend: In Beraketa, a village in southern Madagascar, Metee and her daughter are desperate for rain to come. Three consecutive years of drought have led to the country’s worst nutrition crisis in decades, and many of the region’s children are experiencing severe malnutrition.

Unable to afford food or grow any of their own, Metee’s family has often been forced to subsist on river water and the few wild tubers they can find.

The children are often sick partly because of drinking river water, she tells us, but seeking medical attention is difficult with no income. “It takes us hours to get to the nearest health center. They charge for medical treatment, and that isn’t an option for me and my family,” she said.

Metee sought help from the only free source of care she could find: a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) mobile clinic.

In response to this regional crisis, MSF dispatched mobile clinics to 20 locations in the Amboasary and Ambovombe districts earlier this year, which are among the hardest-hit areas of Madagascar. Between March and early August, MSF treated more than 6,000 malnourished children and distributed about 300 metric tons of food.

We’re still working in multiple locations across southern Madagascar. However, the situation is expected to worsen as the country enters its “lean season,” in which stocks from the last harvests will begin to run out and new crops will not yet be ready.

That’s why we’re setting a goal to raise $50,000 by this Friday, October 15. A generous, tax-deductible gift from you now could help keep us supplied with ready-to-use therapeutic food and provide lifesaving care in more than 70 countries around the world.

Friend: Can we count on a gift from you to help us reach our goal?