World Vision works in partnership with poor communities
to build a better life for children. Through innovative and
sustainable programming, we help parents to ensure thei
children have improved access to health care, food, education
and clean water.
Fighting AIDS at
the grassroots
Mozambique is one of many countries
in sub-Saharan Africa where the HIV
prevalence rate has begun to stabilize
in recent years. Much of the credit
goes to grassroots initiatives like the
Farmers Association in Tchemulane,
Mozambique. This World Visionsupported
coalition includes members
who visit and care for orphans and
vulnerable children, a church group that
educates congregations in prevention
and a women's agricultural cooperative
that provides food and income for people living with HIV.
Niger: Treating malnutrition
Seven-month-old Jamila weighed only
five kilograms, but the emaciated child
refused to eat. Her mother, Habbi
Mamane, was worried. Mamane's son
suffered from the same dysentery that
caused similar severe weight loss just
before he died.
This time, however, Mamane knew to
take her baby to a World Vision centre
that teaches mothers how to care for
children with acute malnutrition.
World Vision runs these centres in
Niger and four other African countries
— Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and
Sudan — in close partnership with
local communities and government
health officials. Previously, parents had
to commit malnourished children to
centralized in-patient feeding centres for
up to 20 days, something many were
reluctant to do. But now that they know
their children can recover at home, they
no longer hesitate to get help for their
ailing infants.
In Niger, centre staff have treated more
than 12,800 children for malnutrition
and related illnesses. The most severely
malnourished, like Jamila, are given a
special nutritional supplement on site
over several days to help them quickly
regain weight. Children who are
moderately malnourished take home a
supply of nutritious food. All children
who come to the centre receive a medical
examination, vitamin supplements and
vaccinations.
The centres are strategically located
in communities where World Vision
conducts other development activities
funded by child sponsorship donations.
Sponsored children, along with other
children living in the program area,
benefit from the centre's services.
Indonesia: Books on wheels
Reading is a rare delight for many
children living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Few
schools can afford to maintain a wellstocked
library and public libraries remain scarce. Historically, this lack of a strong
reading culture has contributed to
high primary school dropout rates and
poor literacy skills. Without an education,
children will be caught in the cycle
of poverty.
But since the World Vision mobile
library came to town, thousands of
children in suburban Jakarta have
discovered the world of books. The library
— which holds more than 2,000 volumes
— is contained in two mobile vans that
visit disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Each
visit attracts up to 150 children, from
preschoolers to junior-high students. All
come eager to spend a day immersed in
their favourite books.
"I hope the mobile library comes
here more often so that I can read more
books," says Lita Suryani, 10.
" Hope is passion for what is possible."
Søren Kierkegaard
Healthy Futures
No infant ever emerges unscathed
from malnutrition. Studies show
that inadequate nutrition in the
first 24 months can irreversibly
sap a child's capacity to learn
while increasing their future risk of
disease. To help give children the
best possible start in life, World
Vision is launching a new five-year
nutritional program inpartnership
with Canadian donors. It will
provide strategic interventions,
such as nutritional supplements,
to pregnant mothers and children
under age two in countries
where malnutrition
is widespread.
Chile and Bosnia: Lending a hand
to entrepreneurs
Alexandra Fernandez Ulloa, 5, loves
to play with clay. She comes by
it naturally: she is the
youngest in a long line
of indigenous women
potters in Chile. Her
mother, Elly Ulloa, hopes Alexandra will
one day take over the profitable business
that she is molding for her.
Until recently, however, Ulloa
struggled to make a living. She had no
capital to buy equipment or to market
her wares. Then, World Vision helped
broker a partnership between her and
18 other potters from the same remote
region of Chile. The group now has legal
status and a bank account — necessary
prerequisites for obtaining grants or loans.
The women also share a workroom, a
showroom and many business costs.
Half a world away, beekeepers
Emin and Zahrudin Hadžiabdic faced
similar challenges. Living in a secluded,
mountainous region of Bosnia, the father
and son could not access markets for
their honey.
Through World Vision's Market
Linkages program, which connects
isolated farmers and helps them market
their products, the Hadžiabdics were able
to attend a major fair in Sarajevo. Their
honey earned them the fair's bronze
medal. With the positive exposure,
they sold off their remaining stock and
established a host of new contacts.
World Vision supports entrepreneurs like Ulloa and the Hadžiabdics who
are trying to create their own jobs and
provide for their children. It offers them
micro-credit and helps them network
with other businesspeople to minimize
costs and increase their collective
capacity.
Ulloa now earns a steady income that
has lifted her family above the poverty
line. "The most important thing that
World Vision has done for us is to bring
us together," she says. "This is the cause
of our success."
West Bank: The gift of water
In 2008, nine-year-old Amir Diab
turned on a faucet and saw clean,
running water in his home for the first
time. World Vision had just installed a
new water pump in El
Uddaiseh, ending
a decade-long water shortage in Amir's
West Bank village.
Families in El Uddaiseh used to buy
water in tanks delivered to their homes.
Even with extreme rationing, the water
only lasted 10 days in the
winter and
about a week in the summer. The water
was both expensive and frequently
contaminated, causing children to suffer
skin rashes and diarrhea.
Now, sponsored children, along with
other local children and their
families,
have access to a safe, dependable water
supply at considerably less cost than
before. Residents are replanting longabandoned
vegetable gardens. The new
pump has also nourished the community's
hopes of building a water reservoir so they
can irrigate their farmland.
