Pictures of skeleton-like children in Niger seem to be a hot topic in the media these days. While this "emergency" may be news to you, it has been a reality for Nigeriens for many years now. Even before drought and swarms of locusts significantly reduced last year's harvest, however, an estimated 40 percent of Niger's children were malnourished and its infant mortality was the highest in the world. With a population growth of rate of 3.6 percent (again, highest in the world) and rapid decertification, food availability is likely to decrease even more dramatically in coming years.

While the media's recent coverage of the food crisis in Niger has alerted millions of people to the suffering of this nation's children, it has also created misconceptions. By painting the situation in Niger as a momentary crisis, the media's coverage may lead people to think of food aid as a solution. While food aid may ease hunger pains for some Nigeriens this year, what about those ever-present malnourished children?

As a health volunteer for the Peace Corps in southwestern Niger, I have often asked myself this question. Part of my job includes working with mothers to rehabilitate severely malnourished children. Since January, I have been working with a pair of twins and their mother in a neighboring village. The twins, Amara and Boubacar, weighed only nine pounds each when they reached their first birthday.

My friend Indi, a nurse at the local clinic, and I have been visiting the twins' house over the past eight months. During each visit, Indi and I discuss nutrition and hygiene with the twins' mother. Our instruction has been partially productive: the mother has been diligently preparing a protein-enriched porridge for her children, but she has yet to improve hygiene in her household. Despite Indi's and my constant reiterations about the importance of sanitation, nothing seems to change. Bowls of food left open and covered with flies, chickens eating out of cooking pots, and waste scattered throughout the yard where the children play is the scene that often greets us when we visit the twins' house.

For the past several months, the twins have been showing signs of amelioration, like steady weight gain. Just the other day, however, I saw the twins and their mother at the clinic. Both twins were sick with vomiting and diarrhea, and their frail bodies had lost all evidence of the last eight months' progress. I am hoping that the antibiotics the twins received will restore their health. I am wary, however, knowing that the unsanitary conditions in which these children live may attack their defenseless bodies with a fatal infection any day now. While I have tried to help rehabilitate the twins as best I can, I am convinced that the only way to reduce malnutrition among young children in Niger is to encourage primary school education for girls.

Research has shown that girls' education has a direct impact on infant mortality rates. In Niger, only 16 percent of the population is literate, and a mere 24 percent of girls attend modern school. Increasing school attendance among young girls seems to be the most viable approach in reducing malnutrition and infant mortality in Niger. If the twins' mother had attended school, it is likely that her hygiene and feeding habits would be dramatically different. If nothing else, she would better understand the connection between dirt and sickness, and perhaps be more responsive to my counseling.

While the news headlines scream "CHILDREN ARE STARVING IN NIGER," the solution seems so simple. If they are starving, bring them food. End of story? Not quite. There is no "quick-fix" that will help Niger out of the hole in which it finds itself. The best way to help Niger is to work with its people and its government toward long-term goals, like increasing primary education for all children, reducing population growth, slowing desertification, and improving access to healthcare for all Nigeriens.