Food Pantry
Nutritional requirements and dietary factors have an immense impact on those who are afflicted with leprosy. Research has indicated that nutrition, or lack thereof, is related to the cause and development of the disease due to in part to vitamin deficiencies, including vitamins A, B, and E, calcium, and zinc. Also contributing to the hardships incurred by lack of nutrition is a weak immune system. For persons living in poverty, constantly exposed to poor drinking water and food, a weak immune system can be as debilitating if not as deadly as the disease itself.
To further provide adequate substance to the villages, we initiated a Rice Food Pantry in 2003. Starting with a single colony, the pantry now serves over 30 colonies and provides over half the monthly ration of rice. Recently increases in food costs have severely impacted the colonies and their families’ abilities to buy food from an already impoverished budget. While maintaining the program has required more than doubling expenditures over the last two years, we have made the pantry one of our main initiatives, along with beginning a gardening program. Despite intensively providing the pantry for the victims and their families, what we provide is never enough, and we always need help in this area since it requires cash-for-food purchase.
