Improving children's health in villages in Darfur

We are pleased to announce that KIDS FOR KIDS has recently selected the 60th village to be supported with our integrated programme of activities. The village is Mugabil which is located 40 kms north of the provincial capital, El Fasher. Our local Project staff will be working closely with the village over the coming weeks to explain our ethos of self-reliance and community responsibility for managing all the activities and helping the community to put the necessary structure of village committees in place to manage the project.

In the meantime we are moving ahead on the activities which help to improve children's health for the 5 villages which were brought into the programme in 2011. We have today received three quotations obtained by our Project Manager for the purchase of mosquito nets for distribution to the poorest families and so will shortly be making our selection of the supplier. These mosquito nets have a huge impact on the health of children significantly reducing their exposure to malaria which is a major killer of young children. We will clearly move as quickly as possible in getting the mosquito nets to the villages to provide protection for the children. The same applies to the blankets which will keep the children warm during the winter and will help to reduce the incidence of respiratory infections. Through reducing sickness amongst the children their school attendance improves significantly which is clearly a very positive outcome from the provision of the blankets.

The other activity which contributes significantly to improving children's health is the training of volunteers as first aid workers as these people also do a lot of health education activities with the mothers specifically covering nutrition for children including encouraging them to grow vegetables for their families and how to cope with common childhood illnesses like diarrhoea through making sure that they know about the importance of preventing dehydration. Our Project staff are in discussion with the Sudanese Red Crescent who undertake the training of the first aid workers for us but we are still awaiting a firm date for the next course - we hope it will be in the very near future. The next training course for the village midwives will start on 15 January 2012 for 40 trainees including 2 volunteers from each of the 5 new villages. The village midwives also have an impact on children's health by ensuring that mothers deliver healthy babies and working in partnership with the first aid workers on health education.

Once again I wish to emphasise that we are only able to bring about these changes in the lives of the poorest children in the villages in Darfur through the support of all our donors and we, and the families and communities in Darfur, are eternally grateful for your support.