May 13, 2008
Kiwanis focus on child mortality with Save the Children guest
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Carolyn Miles, chief operating officer of Save the Children, recently spoke at a lunchtime meeting of the Wilton Kiwanis Club.
She focused her comments on Save the Children’s new advocacy and fundraising campaign: Survive to 5. According to Ms. Miles, every three seconds a child under age five dies from preventable or treatable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. Daily mortality rates total more than 26,000 children, with most of these deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. The health campaign’s goal is to reduce global child mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015.
Ms. Miles highlighted one of the successful approaches — training community health workers — that some countries are taking to combat child deaths. By training health workers and equipping them with a package of basic health interventions, many young lives can be saved in rural villages. They can provide skilled care during childbirth, breastfeeding and nutrition support, immunizations, oral rehydration tablets, and pneumonia and malaria treatment and prevention. These rural workers, who live in the communities where they serve, receive a small stipend. And, it only costs about $100 to support training of a community health worker in key lifesaving skills.
Advocacy efforts are being spearheaded by former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. Survive to 5 encourages Americans to support the Global Child Survival Act (H.R. 2266, S 1418) to increase U.S. government spending on programs to save children’s lives. Overall Save the Children seeks to raise $75 million in five years to train health workers and sustain advocacy efforts.
Ms. Miles also discussed her travels, including a trip to Nepal, where health conditions facing children are especially daunting. She took questions ranging from “what is the percentage of funds that go to programs” (approximately 90), to “why Save the Children isn’t training nurses” (more expensive and nurses prefer to work in district hospitals rather than trek to remote villages), to “what are other nations doing” (Canada, the UK and Norway have increased funding for international child survival efforts).
Information: savethechildren.org/surviveto5.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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