Growing up healthy

Ensuring children’s survival, protection and healthy development

Poverty prevents most of the communities from obtaining adequate health care, and this has a particularly devastating effect on children. Less than one in five children under a year old are immunised against polio, measles and DPT (diphtheria, whooping chough and tetanus) and one in every five children dies before reaching the age of five.

Before last year, approximately 270 community health workers provide basic medical services to more than 110,000 households. There are now around 300 health workers, each monitoring the health of hundreds of children. Thanks to these health workers, fewer children are succumbing to fatal illnesses. In addition, 79 per cent of children in areas where we work are now receiving the full course of vaccinations, as opposed to just 44 per cent last year.