MOTHER AND CHILD HEALTH SIGNATURE INITIATIVE

MOTHER AND CHILD HEALTH SIGNATURE INITIATIVE

Every mother and child has a right to health and an opportunity to flourish.

Together, we will deliver essential healthcare, nutrition support, and treatment to 2 million pregnant women, newborns, and children under 5.

People reached so far:
2016
March 2022
2023
1.6 MILLION
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The need

Despite progress in the last 30 years, there is still a massive gap in basic health care in poor rural communities. That gap contributes to staggering statistics:

Every day, 13,773

children under the age of 5 still die from things they shouldn’t have to. Things like birth complications, pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria – all largely treatable and preventable. One child every 7 seconds.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 4 out of 10 children are stunted. Stunting is the impaired growth and development experienced by children with chronic poor nutrition or repeated infection in the first 1,000 days of life. Children don’t get a second chance at their first 1,000 days.

830 women die every day from preventable causes associated with pregnancy and childbirth. In our project areas, half the health clinics don’t have clean water, and 84% don't even have basic hand washing facilities.

The Need
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Our response

Together, we can stop preventable death in its tracks. That’s why we focus on pregnant mothers and the first 1,000 days of their child’s life in three critical ways:

Prevention: We empower women with vital health knowledge and support so they and their children are less likely to be affected by malnutrition, disease, and sickness in the first place.

Treatment: We equip and train local community health workers to quickly diagnose and treat cases of malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea in homes to greatly increase survival rates.

Clinic upgrades: We fill gaps at rural clinics — access to clean water, equipment, supplies, medicine, and staff training — so workers have a better chance of successfully treating patients.

Our impact

Between 2016 and 2021, World Vision reached more than 1 million pregnant women, newborns, and children under the age of 5 with access to improved, life-saving healthcare through our Mother and Child Health Signature Initiative projects in Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Our dedicated and expert staff have delivered on all key project targets, in spite of COVID-19. And double-digit improvements on key impact measurements continue. 

7,883

7,883 local community health workers and volunteers have been trained

27%

27% fewer infants died in our Uganda project areas

162

162 rural health clinics have received support such as training, supplies, equipment, water, sanitation, and hygiene

94%

94% of the malnourished children we treated in our Somalia project areas made a full recovery

6x

6x more children diagnosed with malaria in our Zambia project area were taken to the appropriate care provider

Read our most recent progress report.

Our partners

We are blessed to partner with hundreds of Christian philanthropists and couldn’t do this work without them. And we’re able to reach more people because of our highly collaborative local and global partnerships within private and public sectors.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Coat of arms of Zambia
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The Global Fund
UNICEF
USAID
World Health Organization
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Laura Abernathy

“I visited several health clinic that were without electricity. And then I was able to go back three years later and see the difference – see a facility with clean water, electricity and solar power.”

Dr. Anne Klamar

"The things that most impressed us was the breadth, depth, and interconnectedness of World Vision's health programs."

Resources

Our team of experts

Dr. Greg Allgood Dr. Greg Allgood
Vice President for Water and Health
Shelby Benson Shelby Benson
Vice President, Program Quality and Impact
Seth Marcus Seth Marcus
Senior Program Manager, Mother and Child Health, MPH, PMP

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World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.
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