[Music] [Kirathimo] [A Vision Associates Production] [Narrator:] Teach a mother, save a child is the motto of the Kirathimo Model Village at Limuru near Nairobi, Kenya. Kirathimo is a Kikuyu name and means a blessing. This village is run by the Kenyan Red Cross and is a unique rescue operation. The aim is to rehabilitate local people. Mothers struggling to survive with three or even four pre-school children under the age of five. [Nurse:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Nurse examining a child] [Narrator:] Generally, such closely spaced children are badly undernourished and suffer from protein deficiency. This deficiency, called Kwashiorkor, is increased by dietary changes that occur when a new child comes along too soon. The oldest child must be weaned and introduced to a diet of mashed potatoes and bananas, both foods containing little protein. Sudden changes like this often cause vomiting and general weakening of the child. The visible symptoms of Kwashiorkor include a reddening of the hair, distention of the stomach, and thin legs. [Indistinct chatter] [Cup rattles] [Aid worker prepares food] Lack of protein in the diet is often caused by a shortage of milk. Available grazing in the area is used by large farms producing milk commercially for towns, and milk is too expensive for most people in a large, poor, illiterate, and unemployed population. The Kirathimo idea is to house, without charge, mothers from such a background and see them through a two-week residential course accompanied by their children. [Music continues] [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] The course spread over the entire two-week period includes many use for elements of daily living. Basic nutrition. [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] First aid. [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] Family planning. [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] The women are also given instruction in hygiene, maternity care, and home economics. To look inside each of the Model Village huts, it's look inside in the local home. For the Kirathimo principle is that everything at the village has to be on the same level at the houses and places from which the mothers come. Each home has nothing more than the lowest or poorest. This way, no one can complain that she cannot afford to carry out Kirathimo ideas when she gets home. Looking after the mothers and guiding their daily routine is a friendly figure of Kirathimo's housemother. She tells the mother the safety advantages of the raised fireplace so the small child will not burn herself. The housemother teaches the women how to prepare nourishing meals, explaining the reason for everything she does. [Music] [Music fades out] (drumbeat) [Narrator:] She teaches the mother how to look after the shamba. She teaches her how to care for the chickens and rabbits. [whistling and drumming] How to increase egg production. [whistling and drumming] How to use valuable water twice. [whistling and drumming] [flute music] On the first Sunday of the two weeks stay at the village, husbands and fathers visit to see what their women are being taught. [Music] To some of them, keeping rabbits is a new idea, though easy and practical to adopt. Others have never seen a compost heap before. [Music] [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] Some of the husbands pay a repeat visit to the family planning clinic held in a new village hall building. Outpatients, as well as residents, attend the clinic, which operates at the same time as the regular childcare clinic. [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] The fathers are invited to ask any questions that concern them. [Male speaker 1:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] This man wants to sell all his eggs to buy a beer. The teacher tells him to sell half of the eggs for beer and keep the other half to feed his children. [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Male speaker 2:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] This man wants lots of children so he can sell his daughters for cows and have many sons to support him in his old age. The teacher tells him he must consider how much it would cost to feed and educate the many children he wants, and that it will actually cost him less if he plans his family. [Music] Relief supplies are used at the village but only with education on their use. [whistling] Without this approach, the same families and children will return time after time. [Glass and metal clanking] [Doctor:] I think this can be regularized when she starts taking pills, but tell me something, does she have any other problems? Any vascular problems, any heart problems, any liver, kidney problems? Because it is essential before you give the pill to any patient that we know exactly if they've had any diseases like this. [Baby crying, indiscriminate chatter] [Narrator:] Family planning is a routine part of the preventive health services offered at Kirathimo. [Background conversation] [Doctor:] (softly) Has she ever been hospitalized? She must never stop in the middle of a cycle, once she begins at that, she must continue. Narrator:] Red Cross workers involved in the project say that giving out relief rations and free milk is a short-term answer, but no preventive measure in meeting chronic need. [Doctor:] Never in between the cycles.[Interpreter:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] [unintelligible] [?] Vickers who has been guiding Kirathimo since it began, believes that the follow-up is as important as the cost and when the mothers leave with a simple book in their own language and a certificate to frame, their progress is followed up by county health visitors. [Gentle flute music] [Baby crying] [Narrator:] Saving children from the ravages of protein deficiency and helping mothers to space their children are the two key features in this small but uniquely integrated health and welfare program. [Children playing, music continues] [Background conversation] [Teacher:] [speaking Kikuyu] [Narrator:] These children's future is what Kirathimo is all about. The integration of family planning education into the normal health services, such as the project at Kirathimo, is one way to ensure that future. [Music] [presented by: InternationalPlanned Parenthood Federation] [with the help of: the Family Planning Association of Kenya, The Kenya Red Cross] [and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kenya]