Health

Health and Nutrition for All in Uganda with World Vision Australia

World Vision Australia’s Health and Nutrition for All initiative, in collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health, is dedicated to strengthening maternal and child health care, improving clean water and sanitation infrastructure, and fostering nutritional awareness in communities across Uganda.

Aligned with local health providers, our initiative collaborates to support the critical first 1000 days of a child’s life, with a primary goal of significantly reducing preventable diseases and malnutrition through integrated health and nutrition services.

In addition to providing support to households affected by disabilities to adopt appropriate nutrition plans, this initiative is strengthening the capacity of local health services to provide tailored support to individuals with disabilities. By focusing on local solutions with local leadership, World Vision Australia is addressing critical health needs and cultivating healthier communities for generations to come. Discover more about World Vision Australia on their website.

Save the Children Australia’s teacher-led malaria defence in Malawi

In Malawi, ranked among the top 20 countries for the highest rates of malaria, around 2 million school children experience this disease every year, endangering their health and disrupting their education. Save the Children Australia is working with the Malawi Government and local educators to introduce healthcare into classrooms, focusing on the management of uncomplicated malaria cases and other basic health concerns during school hours.

Concentrating on schools in vulnerable areas in Zomba and Machinga districts, our partnership will equip an additional 600 teachers to diagnose and treat malaria using Learner Treatment Kits, safeguarding 220,000 students across 150 schools. By striving for a 30% reduction in malaria-related illnesses, we’re integrating health services with education and mobilising community and government support. This initiative is a critical step towards reducing malaria’s impact on children’s health and education in Malawi, ensuring they have the opportunity to attend school and thrive.

Every mother has the right to safe childbirth in a clean, well-lit facility. In Malawi, unreliable electricity in rural health centres compromises this every day. We Care Solar’s ‘Light Every Birth’ initiative is designed to meet the critical needs of maternal health workers in remote facilities, ensuring that every delivery room is well-lit, safeguarding the lives of mothers and their health providers.

In collaboration with Malawi’s Ministry of Health, We Care Solar is lighting up maternity wards across Malawi, installing ‘Solar Suitcases’, training women technicians to lead solar installations, and engaging midwives for optimal use of the technology.

Light Every Birth is set to transform healthcare for mothers and newborns across Malawi, granting health workers the ability to perform safely and confidently in well-lit facilities. We are proud to partner with We Care Solar to light a path to a safer, healthier future for mothers and their children in Malawi. Learn more about We Care Solar’s Light Every Birth initiative at their website.

Photo credit: We Care Solar.

In the densely populated informal settlements of Kenya and Zambia, where reliable access to water and power is a challenge, toilets are critically scarce. Without proper sanitation facilities, diarrheal diseases spread, students are deterred from attending school, and women and girls face risks leaving their homes after dark. Together with local communities, Fresh Life is expanding its network of innovative toilets in Nairobi, Kenya, and Lusaka, Zambia.

Fresh Life Toilets are installed by young locals employed by Fresh Life, and become shared facilities that are managed and maintained by local residents as small enterprises. Designed to operate without water or power, the toilets use a container-based dry technology to ensure that waste is securely contained, collected, transported, and treated & disposed of. Led by community need, Fresh Life Toilets are operating in residential areas, busy market centres and schools to improve hygiene and safety, resulting in higher school attendance rates. For more details about Fresh Life’s impactful work and technology, visit their website.

Clinton Health Access Initiative in Zimbabwe is making preventative care for cervical cancer more accessible for women, particularly in rural areas. Zimbabwe has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the world, a disease which is almost entirely preventable. Women with HIV are five times more likely to develop cervical cancer, and cervical cancer is the leading cause of death for these women in Zimbabwe.

Clinton Health Access Initiative is helping to address the barriers that prevent women from accessing cervical cancer screening and treatment, by reducing the cost and the burden on women travelling distances of up to 50km to reach these services. This includes providing screening test kits which allow for self-collection at the community level, rolling out devices using new technologies that treat pre-cancerous cervical lesions, and developing an inexpensive artificial intelligence-based tool to assist healthcare professionals with screening.

Our partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative will expand affordable access to these vital prevention services and increase the accuracy of testing with the goal of reducing the burden of disease and allowing future generations of women to live free from cervical cancer. If you would like to learn more, please visit their website.