Child Health Now

Child Health Now: Together We Can End Preventable Deaths

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Child Health Now is World Vision’s first global campaign focused on a single issue: reducing the preventable deaths of children under five.

In the two minutes it will take you to read this text, more than 30 children under the age of five will die. Most of them will succumb to preventable causes, such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, childbirth complications and malaria.

Twenty-four hours from now, the total will exceed 24,000 and half of them will be in Africa.

“This is more than just a problem facing the developing world. It’s a “silent” emergency and a great child rights violation of our time,” says World Vision’s International President Kevin Jenkins.

Five-year campaign

The huge toll caused by preventable child deaths has led World Vision to launch its “Child Health Now” campaign, a five-year commitment to reducing these deaths.

The campaign will draw on the lessons learned in more than 1,600 community programmes of World Vision, where development strategies are fully linked to the organisation’s advocacy efforts with local and national government bodies.

Through this campaign, World Vision will support communities in raising their voices about their right to quality health care, and press national governments to meet their responsibilities to children, mothers, families and communities throughout their country.

World Vision will also join hands with local government and NGO partners to cooperatively address the critical health-related issues in specific communities.

“Our experience has demonstrated that effective health care – through simple, preventive, cost-effective measures – is a leading factor in community development,” Jenkins says.

Financial commitment

World Vision is making a significant financial commitment to health in its own programmes, of (US) $1.5 billion over the next 5 years.

But working locally won’t be enough. World Vision will also urge wealthy nations to fulfill their promises to improve conditions in the developing world. More than 190 world leaders have committed to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

World Vision’s Child Health Now campaign calls on the international community to rededicate itself to these goals.

World Vision urges you to sign a petition that urges your elected leaders to put child health at the top of their agendas. Let them know you believe 24,000 child deaths every day are not acceptable.

“Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can make Child Health Now a priority,” Jenkins urges.

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