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In 2012, British actor Keeley Hawes went to Djibouti in East Africa to see how money raised at Soccer Aid could help provide life-saving emergency food for children suffering from severe malnutrition.
She met five-year-old Selma.
Selma lives with her mother in a slum outside Djibouti's capital. It’s a sprawling mass of cardboard huts, rotting cows and rubbish.
Lots of people in Djibouti used to keep cattle, but their animals died because it hasn’t rained properly in five years. Families have been forced to move in search of food and water.
Selma’s mum built their house from rubbish and old clothes that she found on the ground. They've lived here for six months.
They have nothing to eat because food is so scarce and expensive.
In February, Selma had to go to hospital because she was so weak from having so little to eat.
She spent two months in Djibouti's only free children's hospital, where she slowly regained strength with the help of special high-calorie milk and life-saving peanut paste.
Selma is back in the slum now and surviving on peanut paste. But the lack of food has left its mark. You can see this in her little body, which is the size of an average two year old's, even though she’s five. She can't focus and she rarely speaks. Her body simply doesn't have the strength.
"Children shouldn’t have to suffer like this", says Keeley.
"Just £20 could pay for a whole month of life-saving emergency food for a severely malnourished child like Selma."
Please donate to Soccer Aid today
UNICEF provides crucial supplies to emergency feeding centres, where children can get special emergency food, packed with nutrients, to help them put on weight quickly.
It's simple and effective - but we urgently need more of it.
Just £5 could help provide a week's supply of life-saving emergency food to help bring a severerly malnourished child back to health.
Donate to Soccer Aid
