When we meet Hasno Ali, she is sitting surrounded by other mothers and their toddlers sitting on buckets. She cradles her youngest son, Ahmed, who is seven months old. Sick with both measles and pneumonia, he has had to face many challenges to stay alive.
It started with a cough, Hasno tells us. Then Ahmed then got diarrhoea and the cough got worse. "I feel sick that my child is sick", she says. The family eats maize and beans, when they can afford them.
"The food I give my children doesn't have enough nutrition, but I don't have enough money," Hasno says.
Above: Ahmed, who is seven months old, is sick with both measles and pneumonia.
© UNICEF/2011/Mony
In the internally displaced person's camp where they live in Galkayo, makeshift huts sit cheek by jowl, as if protecting each other from the dust storms, fires and other devastation that sweep through them every day. Measles, diarrhoea and malnutrition are as common as a cold here, but for growing bodies they can be deadly.
Looking for a better life
Hasno told us that they left Johar, near Mogadishu, earlier this year because of the drought. She says they came "looking for a better life", but when we look around we wonder what life must have been like in Johar, given life here is so obviously an everyday struggle to survive.
The family have had to face tragedy more than once: Hasno's husband passed away last year, making her the breadwinner. She now sorts garbage on the local rubbish dump to make whatever she can to buy food for the family. Often this isn't enough. "It is tough," she says. "Sometimes we go look for rubbish to sell but we don't find it."
Support from UNICEF
Today, though, there is hope. Kneeling beside the mothers sitting on buckets are some of the most inspirational women we have ever met. Armed with vaccine carriers and health kits, the team of six women are providing immunisations, malnutrition screening and basic health care for all children in the internally displaced persons camps across the region. They are the Mobile Child and Mother Health Teams, who are all supported by UNICEF.
One of the team, Ifrah, tells us she loves what she does. "I want to help the children of Somalia have good health," she says.
It's because of women like Ifrah that Ahmed was able to get referred to the hospital for treatment, and its also because of them that Hasno has now been given oral rehydration salts to treat Ahmed's diarrhoea.
"I hope it will bring good health for my children," Hasno tells us. Without this treatment Ahmed's health would have rapidly deteriorated. The team also soon immunised him against preventable diseases like polio and whooping cough.