Maternal and Child Health Almost 10 million children under five die die every year--mostly from preventable causes. They die, and they don’t have to. Simple steps could save these children’s lives—things like exclusive breast feeding for the first six months of life, sleeping under insecticide treated mosquito nets, improved sanitation and hand washing practices, drinking recommended liquids to prevent dehydration from diarrhea, and timely access to basic medicines for malaria and pneumonia. These simple things can mean the difference between life and death. World Relief works with the Church, grass roots communities and government health services to tackle entrenched and complex problems of poverty that affect health. The World Relief Difference World Relief’s Maternal & Child Health programs strive to embody the following characteristics essential to solving global health challenges: to be equitable, affordable, sustainable and scalable. Equitable: They should reach all people in the community regardless of social or economic status. Affordable: They should be cost effective and economically accessible to those in need. Sustainable: They should be maintained by the local community using available resources. Scalable: They should be able to serve large populations without compromising quality.
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The Care Group Model World Relief’s Care Group Model was an innovation developed by Dr. Pieter Ernst-a movement that has revolutionized community health. Training groups of 10 to 15 community health volunteers to go out and educate their neighbors, the model saturates entire communities with life-saving health messages. World Relief’s Maternal and Child Health Programs presently serve over 3.8 million people in 9 countries. Results from World Relief’s successful Child Survival Program in Mozambique were published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2007, in an article titled Examining the evidence of under-five mortality reduction in a community-based programme in Gaza, Mozambique. The State of the World’s Children, 2008, a publication by the United Nations International Children’s Educational Fund (UNICEF) also featured World Relief Mozambique’s results using Care Groups.
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