Bolivia and Brazil launches their campaign today may 26th: “Health for the children on first place”
Rio de Janeiro and La Paz.- World Vision launches today their campaign “Health for the children on first place” in Latin America to diminish infant mortality rates in both countries. The proposal is to open a debate, investigate causes and present solutions between governmental and no governmental organizations. In both countries high authorities, boys, girls and teenagers will participate on the campaign launch.
During 2010, World Vision will invest in health around 1,5 billion dollars on programs and projects focusing on maternal child health, fighting malnutrition and diseases that can be prevented, food safety and HIV/AIDS prevention, mainly in countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The campaign will have a duration of 05 years in Brazil and Bolivia, and both countries are part of the Global Health Campaign of the organization, an effort of World Vision to attack the causes of mortality in mothers, boys and girls up to 05 years old.
“Health for the children on first place” will develop in 6 pilot countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Armenia, India, Kenia and Indonesia. The porpuse is to help accomplishing the milenium golds for the year 2015, focusing in gold number 4, wich is to reduce child mortality. Even today, every day 24.000 children under 5 years old die in the world, an unacceptable reality.
Brazil Situation- Infant Mortality For beyond the averages, considering the progress with the creation of the Single System of Health that offers universal coverage and emphasis on primary care with the FHP- Family Health Program- the income inequality, in Brazil, it´s materializes in different shapes and assumes a serious impact on the health care access. “The statistic can be a sophisticated way of ignorance. Numbers, percentages, trends, rankings and their other graphic expressions are not constituted in reality. Are pieces used to compose one, amongst others, descriptions of reality”, according to Eduardo Nunes, Director of Operations of World Vision for Latin America and the Caribbean.
While in Brazil the rate of neonatal mortality in 2005 was 14,2 deaths per a thousand births, in countries like Chile that same rate was 5,6. One issue that is verified in Brazil is the fact that the rate of neonatal mortality remains high, mainly is compared with other countries in situations similar to the Brazilian economy.
According to Alexandre Brasil, professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, “studies have found association between high rates of infant mortality with low coverage of sanitation, low education and low rent. The infant mortality rates reaches the most vulnerable populations with extremely higher values on indigenous population and African descendents”.
“Death that can be avoided in tens of thousands of children annually in Brazil reflects the inequalities of income, per region and per skin color. The Brazilian mortality rates reflects that there is no preferential option for children, not only in the health policy, but must social investments. Currently, the poverty rate among older people is around 10%, among children, approximately 34%”, completes Eduardo Nunes, from World Vision.
"We know that infant mortality is the result of many causes and their struggle must be multidisciplinary and intersectional, in other words, the actions of prevention and protection, to take effect, must have an integrated and complex approach," said Maurício Cunha , Director of World Vision programs in Brazil. The various public actions generally benefit the citizens unequally, giving a greater attention to those with better conditions. Even in situations of extreme poverty, those who are poorest among the poor have less access and receive less aid than their neighbors.
Progress in these points requires the union of different social actors and the changing of a century reality. It implies that the executive, legislative and judiciary to exercise their roles and that different levels of government administration (union, states and municipalities) to carry out their tasks. In this quest, political parties also have an important role, which, together with civil society organizations, businesses, universities, research centers and media, can play different roles and functions in the search for a better society for everyone.
What is the health campaign? The Global Child Health Campaign (GCHC) is World Vision’s first-large scale campaign that focuses on improving the health of mothers and children. The five-year campaign will press governments to deliver on their commitment to help achieve the United Nation’s health-related Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 (reduce child mortality). The campaign also will press governments to achieve MDG 5 (improve maternal health) and MDG 6 (combat HIV and AIDS) as a means of achieving MDG 4.
The campaign has been endorsed by the World Vision International Board and affirmed a priority by the Partnership Representative Committee and the Senior Executive Team.
Why is World Vision leading a campaign? As one of the world’s largest child-focused non-governmental organisations, World Vision has a seminal opportunity to leverage its strengths, expertise and reach to help save 6 million of the approximately 9 million children that die each year from preventable causes (e.g., pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria).
The campaign is a fulfilment of World Vision’s calling and mandate to ensure children experience life in all its fullness. It will enable the organisation to become a foremost global advocate for children’s health, a central aspect of its mission, and have a decisive impact on the lives of the world’s poorest children. World Vision is already making a difference in improving health through its programming; now it is time to maximise this impact by stewarding our institutional influence as effectively as we do other resources and vocalising the need for systemic change on all levels.
What is the goal of the campaign? The ultimate goal of the campaign is for all families to have access to prevention, care and education so that the most vulnerable children remain healthy in their communities.
Specifically, the campaign aims to: • reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, particularly in the poorest and most marginal regions of the world • raise awareness of, and provoke greater public discourse about, child mortality • inform and persuade decision-makers and governments to do all they can to keep children healthy
How will the campaign achieve its goal? World Vision will take a bottoms-up approach, drawing on its experience of improving maternal and child health, to campaign at national and international levels. It will produce credible and relevant research, lobby decision makers and mobilise supporters to press for improvements in child survival.
World Vision will also: • link its programmes to advocacy to ensure the organisation is speaking authoritatively and from experience working in communities • coordinate its approach across different support offices, harnessing resources and expertise to increase donor influence • bring the voices of children from the field to the global level, giving them a platform to represent their concerns
What progress has the campaign made and what are the next steps? The campaign team has developed a strategy and a clear methodology that will develop capacity and sustainability for long-term engagement. It has also developed campaign branding, which is being tested with different audiences, and begun planning for the launch report.
Seven countries (Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Bosnia, Bolivia, India and Armenia) have been selected to pilot the campaign’s initiatives. These pilots will enable World Vision to develop and test a working model of advocacy campaigning that adds value to the organisation’s health programmes and engages national governments. Support office, regional office and Global Centre-level staff from a range of ministries are also working to support these pilots and ensure that key decision-makers and publics hear about the campaign, and to get them involved in reducing preventable child deaths.
World Vision will launch the campaign publicly on 16 November, 2009 at the United Nations in New York, U.S. and in Nairobi, Kenya. Each participating World Vision office will also launch the campaign in its own context.
World Vision launch Global Child Health Campaign
New York.- The lives of millions of children in the developing world could be saved if governments rebalanced health spending to ensure provision of such low-cost, simple interventions as better nutrition and skilled birth attendants – that even the poorest countries could implement.
“It’s not acceptable that more than 24,000 children are dying every day, most from preventable causes such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, childbirth complications and malaria,” said Kevin Jenkins, World Vision International President and CEO.
Camilo Palacios Ávila Regional Communications Coordinator World Vision – Latin America & Caribbean Regional Office Email: camilo_palacios@wvi.org
Amanda Rives Senior Adviser Public Policy, Advocacy and Positioning World Vision – Latin America & Caribbean Regional Office Email: Amanda_Rives@wvi.org
Paula Sáez Riquelme Media Relations and Web Content Officer World Vision – Latin America & Caribbean Regional Office paula_saez@wvi.org
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