Super genius!
“I am paying school fees, and they are eating well and are healthy.” Betty Willobo speaks of her 3 sons and what she has been able to provide through her job as a stove vendor. Learn more at www.theadventureproject.org.
On any given day, more than 27,000 committed individuals representing dozens of nationalities can be found providing assistance to people caught in crises around the world. They are doctors, nurses, logistics experts, administrators, epidemiologists, laboratory technicians, mental health professionals, and others who work together in accordance with MSF’s guiding principles of humanitarian action and medical ethics.
MSF field staff are supported by their colleagues in 19 offices around the world, including one in New York City. The vast majority of MSF’s aid workers are from the communities where the crises are occurring, with ten percent of teams made up of international staff, including the more than 200 aid workers from the US who completed nearly 300 assignments in 2009, and the 340 US-based aid workers who left on more than 435 assignments to 45 countries in 2010. Read more about MSF.
Photo: Somalia 2009 © MSF
Water and sanitation are crucial to a community’s health, and our organization has built toilets, fountains, water tanks, and wells for safe drinking water in at least 25 countries. To find out how you can help provide water to communities, join our Water For Life project today.
A mother and her newborn at the maternity of MSF hospital in Pibor, Jonglei State, South Sudan. Renewed intercommunal violence in South Sudan has forced thousands of families to flee into the bush, where they have no access to assistance, including medical care.
Photo: South Sudan 2010 © Cédric Gerbehaye / Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund / VU’
Photo of the Day: Eliakim Bonhace, 13, is participating in Mercy Corps’ Art Therapy program at the Guepars school in Port-au-Prince. The aim of the program is to strengthen the children as individuals, give them a creative outlet, and help them move on from the trauma they suffered during the 2010 earthquake.
(Photo by Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps)
Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011
9. Too many Children Suffering From Malnutrition Go Unnoticed Outside Emergency Hot Spots
Each year, malnutrition claims millions of children’s lives—but this year, the world’s attention was drawn to the dramatic numbers of children suffering from malnutrition as the refugee crisis in the Horn of Africa unfolded. Thousands of Somali families fled their homes for refugee camps in neighboring countries, triggering a massive aid operation to provide them with emergency food aid.
However emergencies—while attention-grabbing—are only part of a much larger story of on-going childhood malnutrition that occurs outside the media spotlight in areas like South Asia and Africa.
Providing nutritious food to young children is the cornerstone of every attempt to fight malnutrition in both rich and developing countries. In 2010, MSF witnessed a reduction by half in the mortality among children in Niger who received nutrient-dense foods as part of supplementary feeding programs. Niger has undertaken large-scale distributions of supplementary foods for children under two at risk of malnutrition in both 2010 and 2011.
Improvements in the way we tackle childhood malnutrition are clearly underway, but more efforts are needed to ensure that nutritious food reaches all vulnerable young children wherever they live, and not just those in emergency hot spots.
Photo: Niger 2010 © Yann Libessart/MSF
Nom, mother of 4 girls, purchased a stove and can now cut her cooking time in half, feed her family better, improve their health, and increase her disposable income.
Learn more at www.theadventureproject.org. Photo by Esther Havens.
