Rebecca Writes: Liahona Children's Foundation

So I realized that I've been here a month and all I've blogged about is the exciting trips we've taken which is only about a fourth of our time here. The other three quarters of the time here we are kept busy by our internships. That's right, I'm an intern! I work with the Liahona Foundation here in Phnom Penh. It's a super great organization that works on children's nutrition and promoting breastfeeding.
So every six months they screen children in six different areas of Cambodia. They take their height, weight, and other information to determine how well nourished they are. If the children show signs of malnutrition, they are entered into the program where they then receive nutritional supplement and their mothers receive lessons on proper nutrition. It's a really good program and they work really hard to help out young children because malnutrition is a huge problem. In class at BYU we've had a lot of lessons about this shown through the poverty cycle: families are poor and cannot afford to feed their children very well--> their children are malnourished and their brains don't develop as well--> these children aren't as well educated and can't get great jobs--> they work at low paying jobs and their family is poor so they can't afford to feed their children very well....And the cycle just continues on from there. It's a really hard cycle to break, but it starts with properly nourished children! And that's why I love the work the Liahona Foundation does and am glad to be a part of it!
Two weekends ago the three other interns and I went to Battambang to help with the screenings there for an afternoon. It was a really cool trip and a nice chance to go out and do work with the mothers and children instead of data analysis behind a computer. Here's a few pictures of us at the screenings: