After spending close to three hours on a bumpy, wet road, we finally arrived at our destination. It was a rural village with a cluster of 1-room structures made of mud and wood with thatched roofs. The village is in World Vision’s Nkeyema Area Program in west Zambia. Soon after getting out of the muddy 4-wheel van, we were greeted by a spirited young woman named Mary Mulimbika. She passionately shook our hands and welcomed us with a beaming smile.

Nearly half of all child deaths under the age of five occur within the first month of their lives*, despite marked improvement over the past 30 years. That’s about 2.6 million babies a year. More than 7,100 a day.

World Vision is committed to decreasing preventable neonatal and maternal mortality, and our mother and child health initiative is already making real and sustainable impact in Somalia, Uganda, and Zambia. The approach is working for three main reasons: it’s targeted, it’s grass-roots, and it’s integrated. In a nutshell, we focus on educating women, delivering basic health and nutrition information through trusted local health workers, enabling access to essential health services, and improving health facilities.

On World Health Day, we celebrate the progress being made and the donors and partners who make it possible for the work to continue.

More than 200 million women and girls around the world are living with the results of the dangerous practice of female genital mutilation (FGM/C), also known as cutting and female circumcision, according to a report by UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.

In the next decade, 30 million more are at risk. The United Nations created the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, observed every year on February 6, to stop this harmful practice to girls and women. Ending FGM by 2030 is also part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Hope is empowering, infectious, even healing. But sometimes our world can make hope hard to find. Here are 5 reasons you can have real hope right now — and how to pray for continued progress.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” —Jeremiah 29:11

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shares her thoughts on time poverty, empowering girls and women, and her motivation to serve.

Mobile apps, computers, and solar energy are commonplace in the U.S., but World Vision is using this same technology to transform remote communities around the world.

Little Isaac came into this world with the odds stacked against him. 

His mother died the day after he was born. He was so small people were afraid to touch him, let alone take him in as one of their own. Most of the people in his Ugandan village thought he would almost certainly die.

Thankfully, Josephine was not afraid. This 47-year-old mother was touched by the tiny, fragile infant and decided to bring him into her home. Her children wanted him too, especially her sons David and Samuel.