Tens of thousands of undernourished Mauritanian school children are now eating better, thanks to a World Vision-World Food Program feeding initiative. Launched earlier this year, children in 450 schools receive a high-energy morning snack and nutritious hot lunch each day; these meals help ensure that children get the minimum nutrients they need to grow and thrive.

Malnutrition is common in Mauritania; 44 per cent of children under five suffer from stunting as a result of poor diets. Weak and undernourished, these children can't fight off such common diseases as malaria, diarrhea and respiratory infections. Some 22,000 Mauritanian children die every year from preventable diseases.

Maimouna Sy's mother wishes the school feeding program would come to their community. She is unable to provide nine-year-old Maimouna with nutritious meals. She longs for her daughter to be healthy, though, so she can study hard and finish school, and then be able to raise her own family when she's older. Maimouna's mother, who never learned to read or write, says, "I don't want this life for my only daughter."

You can help World Vision deliver food programs like this to needy children in Mauritania and around the world by sponsoring a child today.

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