Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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Early Childhood Development Now, Success Later

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Children can be underestimated. They are born with the ability to absorb the world around them, and their experiences shape them in unique ways. The effects of early childhood development can have a significant impact on their success when it is time for school and future careers.

By age three, children’s brains are 82 percent of their adult size. It is vital to exercise the brain in its earliest years in order to reach developmental milestones later. Everyday activities like talking, reading and singing strengthen young children’s minds.

Trillions of neural synapses, or brain-cell connections, form in the first few years of a baby’s life. Connections will be lost indefinitely if a child is not stimulated with interaction and early experiences.

Playing, speaking and singing to babies prepares them to have a larger vocabulary, succeed in school and even increases their chance of graduating high school.

“The evidence is vast: exposing children before the age of five to stimulating environments strengthens their language development, social and emotional health, problem solving abilities, memory function, use of logic, analytical skills and ability to cope with new situations – leading to significantly better performance later in school,” said Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of Global Partnership for Education, in a Huffpost Education blog.

Albright points out that countries around the world have recently embraced the evidence and began to invest in their early childhood development programs.

Although early childhood development is important purely for the well-being of children, research has shown profound economic benefits as well. According to the Huffpost blog, for every dollar countries spend on pre-school programs, there is a $7 to $8 of economic, health and social progress.

Successful initiatives begin well before pre-school, with pre-natal maternal health, proper nutrition for breastfeeding mothers and adult caregiving skills.

Many cultures around the world benefit from classes that train the community to provide nurturing and age-appropriate activities in pre-school. Particularly low-income and disadvantaged communities often need extra efforts to create an engaging environment that will strengthen the cognitive development of children under two.

Quality early childhood care feeds a child’s ability to reach their full potential and contribute to their society.

Some obstacles developing countries encounter in establishing Early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs are a lack of funding, limited country capacity and low social demand. Organizations like Global Partnership for Education combat these barriers by providing technical and financial support, providing grants to finance the programs and supporting capacity development and knowledge sharing by pointing to the evidence.

Even though children do not talk back initially, they will learn and understand faster if they are engaged and spoken to. It is vital to educate populations around the world on the impact of early childhood care on development because it is not always prioritized simply for lack of knowledge. Quality ECCE can transform the resilience of communities and reap economic benefits.

– Emily Ednoff

Photo: Flickr

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Cricket Without Boundaries Raises Awareness

Cricket Without Boundaries

Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) is a U.K. based charity, founded in 2005. The organization is dedicated to raising awareness about the HIV/AIDs epidemic occurring in various impoverished communities.

CWB does this through integrating lessons about HIV and AIDs with cricket instruction. These cricket programs are designed to, “break down the barriers of discrimination, empower individuals and educate about HIV/AIDs prevention and testing.”

This charity is currently involved in five African countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Within these countries, CWB offers cricket coaching programs as well as comprehensive sexual education.

The organization aims to go beyond the traditional approach to understanding sexual education as a method for fighting transmitting STIs. This traditional method involves abstinence, being faithful to a single partner, condom use and testing (ABC and T). CWB includes this approach in its lessons but also understands that HIV spreads despite abstinence and faithfulness.

The charity wants to provide accurate sexual education to both genders to further protect women and girls (among the most vulnerable) from HIV. By eliminating the gender gap in sexual education, CWB has a stronger impact in these communities.

By focusing on prevention and healthy sexual relationships, the organization has successfully educated thousands of adults and children. CWB trains various coaches within these countries to create a sustainable community-level program.

The charity states that it has, “coached over 65,000 children, who will be the next generation of cricketers, passing on skills and knowledge in cricket grounds, schools and communities, both about cricket and about the disease.”

By utilizing sport to build a supportive community that educates both adults and children about HIV/AIDS, Cricket Without Boundaries provides a model of disease prevention that can be applied globally.

CWB has gained traction over the years in major news sources such as BBC and CNN. In 2014, CNN conducted interviews within one of the charity’s projects in Rwanda.

Eric Hirwa, a member of Rwanda’s national cricket team, is among the individuals interviewed who train and educate hundreds of Rwandan children each week. The most recent UNAIDS data estimated 210,000 people living with HIV in the country.

This same report estimated 85,000 children to be orphaned as a result of AIDS and 3,000 deaths due to the virus. Rwanda is just one example of the vulnerable communities CWB targets.

Funding Cricket Without Boundaries and other similar organizations can significantly improve the current state of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world.

– Saroja Koneru

Photo: Flickr

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Greater Access to Education for Girls in African Countries

girls in african countries

The U.N. Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal education has played a vital role in advancing education for boys and girls in African countries, however, obstacles still remain.

In addition to increasing access to education, the U.N. Millennium Development Goals also included overcoming extreme poverty, promoting gender equality and women’s rights, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating HIV and malaria, creating a sustainable environment and advocating for global partnership. These goals are not isolated in nature, but rather each builds upon the next.

“Children who don’t have access to clean water and who aren’t taught proper hygiene practices like hand-washing with soap are more likely to be ill and absent from school,” according to Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC). “Combined with lack of proper nutrition – and often, the schools are the one place they have a guaranteed daily meal – children’s susceptibility to preventable, waterborne disease increases dramatically. Disease also spreads much more rapidly in schools without proper hygiene and sanitation.”

Canadian Feed the Children is a registered Canadian charity that works with local partners to establish food security and education in developing countries. The organization believes that “education is the best investment in prosperous, healthy and equitable societies.”

With more children having access to an education, more resources are needed; such as books, maps, research and reference materials, blackboards and writing materials. Infrastructure becomes a challenge when the number of students outgrows the number of available classrooms.

Additionally, kitchens and latrines are essential components for health and hygiene and each must be outfitted with their own supplies and equipment. A productive learning environment requires the availability of meals and safe, clean facilities.

When schools are overpopulated, understaffed and lacking necessary supplies, it is difficult to recruit teachers. Many times underqualified and unpaid volunteers step in to teach in impoverished communities, which can do more harm than good.

Crop failure, parents’ illness and rising prices are some of the barriers families living below the poverty line are facing when they sacrifice the education for one or more of their children in order to feed the family. Most often, it is the girls who are chosen to miss out.

Schools lacking a latrine present another obstacle for girls, for whom modesty and safety are important.

“For many girls, the need to leave the classroom several times a day makes going to school anxious and unpleasant. For older girls, menstruation in an environment where there is no toilet and no water causes embarrassment and further complicates matters. And where toilet facilities are not available or located far away, there is a much higher risk of violence for girls. The risks and hassle just aren’t worth it – and they drop out. There are so many barriers to girls’ education, toilets shouldn’t be one of them,” said Amboka Wameyo, CFTC’s Regional Program Manager – Africa.

Girls in African countries like Ghana, Ethiopia and Uganda endure early or forced marriage, the burden of chores, pressure to care for siblings and long-distance walks to school leaving them vulnerable to rape or violence. The dropout rate for girls around age 12 increases dramatically, sometimes reaching 100 percent.

According to Canadian Feed the Children, every year a girl attends school translates into a 15 percent increase in their income as they become less vulnerable to the threat of domestic violence and poverty.

Girls in African countries must be given the opportunity to improve their lives and subsequently contribute to the alleviation of the poverty cycle in their communities.

– Emily Ednoff

Photo: Flickr

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Sharon Njavika Starts a New Social Enterprise

EnterpriseFor Sharon Njavika, the idea of starting her own business began while she was studying abroad in Staffordshire, England. How We Made it in Africa notes that Njavika was one of the only black females in the city and therefore had limited to access to hair and skincare products that fit her needs.

She would have to travel to the next town over to get her hair chemically straightened and recalls becoming frustrated with the constant upkeep of her looks, which she believed were necessary in order to fit in with her surrounding culture.

Njavika told How We Made it in Africa, “one time my friend was doing my hair and I got a bad wound from the chemical relaxer. It was a big flesh wound, and the experience was traumatic.” After this incident, Njavika ditched the chemicals and started looking for a more natural way to manage her hair.

As an HCD (Health, Community and Development) graduate, Njavika utilized her practice of health and well-being to create her own social enterprise, AJANI handmade. Journalist Banke Falade recognizes that AJANI handmade markets natural hair products specifically for black hair as well as general natural hair care.

Njavika writes, “The business model is grounded in perpetuating messages and images of worth, beauty, agency and capacity by and for African women. Through participating in and facilitating conversations online and otherwise, we aim to address the sometimes ignored, often dynamic, social narratives that affect young African women.”

Njavika’s business is based in Kenya, where a growing number of women are embracing the natural look.

However, Njavika social enterprise faces some challenges, such as limited access to financing, raw materials and high quality packing materials. The young entrepreneur also keeps a full-time job in order to cover her personal expenses and fund the growing business.

An African blog writer commented, “she has such a passion and drive for this new company that I can only see it developing, growing and thriving in the months and years to come. I think the aspect that most caught my attention is the fact that AJANI Handmade is much more than just selling beauty/care products. They focus on self-love, confidence, well-being and supporting black women.”

Njavika focuses on perpetuating messages of beauty and self-worth, demonstrating the principles that drive her social enterprise, AJANI handmade.

– Megan Hadley

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World’s First Vaccine for Dengue Fever

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Over the past several decades, the global health community has taken on the challenge of eradicating diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and malaria.

Dengue fever (pronounced den’gee), a mosquito-borne viral infection, is another agenda item, which the World Health Organization (WHO) notes “has rapidly spread in all regions” putting about half of the world’s population at risk.

Similarly, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls dengue fever a “leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics.”

The WHO estimates that nearly 400 million people are infected with dengue fever each year. Close to 500,000 individuals who have developed severe dengue fever or dengue hemorrhagic fever will require hospitalization and about “2.5 percent of those affected die.”

Symptoms of severe dengue fever include sharp abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, rapid breathing, bleeding gums, fatigue, restlessness and blood in vomit. The WHO highlights that the first 24-48 hours after initial symptoms begin can be lethal without proper medical attention and care.

Currently, there is no cure for dengue fever. However, the WHO has now approved a vaccination called Dengvaxia, which took 20 years to be developed at a cost of $1.8 billion.

Dengvaxia, developed by Sanofi Pasteur is being released in the Philippines this month in the first ever public immunization program for the virus. The Philippines has had the highest rates of dengue fever in the pacific region with over 200,000 cases reported in 2013.

A report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that the vaccination “prevents dengue hospitalizations by 80 percent and severe dengue cases by 93 percent.” The program was launched in Manila’s Marikina city to hundreds of public school children and is being administered in three courses, separated by six months.

The Philippines Health Secretary Janette Garin called the program a “historic milestone”. Garin continued, “We are the first country to introduce, adopt and implement the first-ever dengue vaccine through (the) public health system and under a public school setting.”

– Michael A. Clark

Photo: Flickr

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How GMOs Could Potentially End Poverty and Hunger in Africa

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One of the major ways extreme poverty and hunger can be terminated is an increase in agricultural activity. Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, could potentially be a part of solving the poverty challenge.

Food products with GMOs are genetically engineered to increase crop yields, lower costs for food production, reduce the need for pesticides, enhance nutrient composition and food quality, resist pests and disease and increase food security.

Technological advancement has also made it possible for GMOs to withstand environmental stressors, allowing them to grow in conditions where they may not otherwise be able to thrive.

Though there are risks and controversies surrounding the use of GMOs, they could play a role in creating a new green revolution in Africa. African governments and donors can initiate the use of GMOs in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development (CGD).

Primarily, governments in Africa can develop cost-effective regulatory policies for these organisms. The policies would cover developing, testing, commercializing and importing genetically modified crops—most areas. Clear strategies would reduce uncertainty for potential investors by ensuring breakthroughs that occur can be distributed to farmers.

African governments can also exchange experiences and information about GMOs among each other. A platform to share information would help governments make cost effective decisions and learn potential opportunities and risks associated with GMO traits under certain conditions.

Pursuing South-South cooperation on GMO trade and regulatory policies is another tactic African governments can execute. Though the European Union is the largest market for African agricultural exports, trade with emerging markets is growing at a much faster rate. Thus, African governments should coordinate with countries like Argentina, Brazil, India and China to develop regulations for trading GMOS.

Lastly, the CDG says that donors should provide technology-neutral support for research and development for food security. Donors should also build capacity to facilitate trade in GMOs. African countries need support for research on modified staple crops, which donors can provide. In addition, EU donors should also provide technical and financial support due to its role as a major market.

Genetic modification is just one of many technologies that can improve agricultural productivity in Africa and the investments required to implement them could improve agricultural productivity as a whole.

– Kerri Whelan

Photo:  Flickr

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Cashpor Micro Credit Fights Poverty in India

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Cashpor Micro Credit is a non-profit assisting those who live in impoverished communities in India. The organization uses microfinance techniques and loans to help women build a life for themselves and their families in addition to earning enough money to repay the loans provided to them by Cashpor Micro Credit.

Cashpor Micro Credit

Founded in Varanasi, India in 1996, the organization works in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. In addition to microloan assistance, Cashpor Micro Credit also provides scholarships for college education, financial training, health education and insurance programs.

Their mission is to reach all impoverished women throughout the BIMARU states in India, which include the cities of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and guide them in lifting themselves and their families, out of poverty.

Astronomic Growth

As of 2014, Cashpor Micro Credit had 864,551 women actively borrowing loans from them, according to Mix Market statistics. Their gross loan portfolio, which comprises all outstanding client loans, reached 147.4 million, with the average loan per borrower averaging 170 dollars. This has allowed them to maintain a 40 percent business growth over the past few years.

In total, Cashpor Micro Credit has 341 branches in and around the BIMARU states. Cashpor Micro Credit is known for its efficient business model, the way in which it manages its finances and assets and the fact that Cashpor Micro Credit shares this knowledge with its clients to ensure a proactive use of their loans.

Three Main Programs

Its credit plus activities are divided into three major programs. This program assists members through scholarships, health education and a community health facilitator program.

The scholarships allow members to send their children to college, thus distancing them from the poverty line.

Cashpor’s health education teaches overall health to their clients. During their regular business meetings, community leaders are required to engage in 15 minute discussions about health, including how to best fight illnesses in children.

The community health facilitator program is designed to provide clients with a health mentor, who will give health intermediary services. The program designates 80 women, who are trained in health and assigned to 300 Cashpor clients. The program is run in each district Cashpor operates in.

Improving Quality of Life

Cashpor Micro Credit continues to assist those in India struggling to get out of poverty and will continue until the quality of life in India becomes sustainable, abundant and efficient.

– Julia N. Hettiger

Photo: Flickr

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USAID Combats Maternal, Neonatal & Child Mortality in Ethiopia

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USAID is working with the Ethiopian government to reduce maternal, neonatal and child mortality rates, according to their website. Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the world.

“Women have a one-in-52 chance of dying from childbirth-related causes each year,” according to USAID. “Every year, more than 257,000 children under the age of five die and 120,000 die in the neonatal period. More than 60 percent of infant and 40 percent of under-five deaths in Ethiopia are neonatal deaths.”

Increasing Health Care Services

This dire situation calls for extensive health care services. Ninety percent of Ethiopian women give birth in their homes in order to observe cultural traditions and be surrounded by company they trust. Health facilities can spread awareness about the value of institutional delivery in decreasing mother and child mortality rates; many mothers have never heard the benefits of skilled birth attendance and postnatal care.

Preventable complications like hemorrhage, infection, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders and obstructed labor are to blame for 80 percent of maternal deaths.

USAID has intervened in family, community and facility care by increasing accessibility of health services. A health extension program includes basic obstetric and newborn care, essential newborn care, management of neonatal and childhood illnesses, coverage of immunizations and the early identification and treatment of sick children, all of which go a long way to decreasing the child mortality rate.

Additionally, they funded the Integrated Family Health Project, an activity that seeks to promote and strengthen family planning and maternal, newborn and child health practices and services. With the cooperation of health programs throughout Ethiopia, the IFHP impacts about 40 percent of the country’s entire population.

The Health Ministry and various organizations provide health facilities with ambulances, equipment and skilled staff. The majority of communities in Ethiopia lay in rural regions that place women in a vulnerable position when a complication arises during childbirth, and many fatalities occur in the transfer to a health facility.

Global Involvement

The Government of Germany recently contributed 10 million euro to UNICEF, bolstering its emergency response to drought affected regions in Ethiopia. This support will provide life-saving assistance to severely malnourished children and pregnant and lactating women. Lack of nutrition threatens close to half of a million children under the age of five and nearly 140,000 lactating women in the Somali area.

By providing preventive, promotional and basic curative health and nutrition services to mothers, infants and young children, USAID and other organizations like UNICEF are saving lives and combating illness and disability.

– Emily Ednoff

Photo: Flickr

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Access to Private Toilets Improves Sanitation

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For those living in developed countries, having access to private toilets is taken for granted. Having access to something as simple as private toilets changes lives drastically but about 2.3 billion people or a third of the world does not have access to them. This puts their health, education and safety at risk, as reported by The Huffington Post.

According to The Indian Express, approximately 60 percent of people in India do not have access to safe toilets. The people most affected by this are women and girls. They have no other choice but to relieve themselves outdoors. This puts them at a higher risk of getting assaulted or contracting diseases due to a lack of sanitation.

If private toilets exist in a community or neighborhood, they tend to be far and few between. More often than not, many schools in developing regions do not have sanitary facilities. When girls attending school don’t have access to sanitation, they have no privacy to deal with their needs and end up having to miss class when menstruating. This will often discourage girls from going to school at all, to avoid embarrassment and falling behind in school.

However, even if there is access to clean water and a private bathroom, many will continue to use the outdoors. According to The Guardian, particularly in India, many men still prefer to go outside to defecate, even if they have already installed a toilet at home. It gives them a moment of quiet as they survey their farmlands.

The results of using the outdoors as a toilet are negative. The practice continues to pollute already scarce water sources and to spread diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Other health risks include malnutrition and childhood stunting, which impairs 161 million children every year, according to a report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

A study released by WaterAid states that nearly 40 percent of India’s children are stunted. Stunting can affect not only their lives but the country’s prosperity in the future. Also, diarrheal diseases kill 700,000 every year.

Despite various governments’ pledges to install toilets in every home, little has been done to improve education about the damages that unsanitary practices cause.

Prime Minister Modi of India has made the issue of sanitation a top priority. In 2014 Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission, which translates to Clean India. This project aims to ensure a toilet in every home by 2019 and to teach people about the long-term consequences of using proper sanitation. In order to provide everyone with access to toilets, India would have to build 100 million.

March 22 was United Nations World Toilet Day. There is the hope that the day will increase awareness and educate about the importance of access to toilets.

– Michelle Simon

Photo:  Flickr

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Higher Number of Women Landowners Relieves Poverty

Women Landowners Relieve Poverty
As the number of women landowners grows, the overall condition of their communities improves drastically. This topic was recently covered at the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2016, the 17th annual conference, earlier this month.

The conference, “Scaling up Responsible Land Governance,” brought together many experts from many fields from around the globe to talk about land strategy.

A large portion of this year’s conference highlighted the work of researchers focusing on the empowerment of women in developing countries through land ownership. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of increasing women landowners is the link to fewer cases of domestic violence.

With greater access to land ownership for women, the need for young daughters to marry diminishes and households have more access to resources. According to Klaus Deininger, an economist for the World Bank and conference organizer, women with greater land rights typically have more personal wealth, leading to lower levels of domestic violence.

“If women have stronger bargaining power, they actually can resist,” Deininger says in an article by Reuters. “Their husbands will think twice before beating them.”

The conference tackled questions on how to enhance women’s awareness of their legal rights and how to ensure women’s rights in land interventions. The Landesa Rural Development Institute is an organization that seeks to provide solutions to these questions by securing greater access for potential women landowners in developing countries.

Laws and policies often dilute or deny women’s rights to land. Even when laws enshrine such rights, loopholes, low implementation and enforcement and sex-discriminatory practices often undercut these formal guarantees.

Landesa’s Center for Women’s Land Rights has programing in both India and Rwanda to combat those challenges. In partnership with West Bengal’s Department of Women and Child Development, the Security for Girls Through Land Project provides vocational training and skills to adolescent girls in order to improve their health and nutrition. The curriculum is based on land rights, asset creation and land-based livelihoods.

The project creates “girls groups” which are peer-facilitated meetings in which girls are given lessons to educate them about land rights and the positive benefits associated with control over land. Girls are taught to start “kitchen gardens” to grow produce for the family or to sell. As the girls begin to earn money, often for the first time, families begin to think of girls as an asset rather than a burden.

The project, beginning in 2010, has already reached 40,000 girls in over 1,000 villages in West Bengal. In addition to engaging with girls in local communities, the project reaches out to boys in local schools in an effort to change the mindset that young women are an economic burden.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that women make up half of the world’s agriculture workforce. As these women have greater access to land, the ripple effect, according to Landesa, includes better nutrition for families, improved family health, educational gains and reduced domestic violence.

– Michael A. Clark

Sources: Landesa, Reuters, World Bank
Photo: Flickr