Improving children's health in villages in Darfur

Activities are progressing well in the three new villages in which the KIDS FOR KIDS' programme has been launched in the latter part of 2010. The villages have appointed their Village Development Committees and Animal Loan Committees and these committees are currently receiving training in management techniques as they will be responsible for running the various activities in the villages. Most importantly for the health of the children each village community has identified two of its community members to be trained as first aid workers and two women to be trained as village midwives. The first aid workers are particularly important for improving the health of children as they are heavily involved in health education in the villages and a very important part of this is training mothers in improved nutrition for their children thereby helping to give them a better start in life. The first aid workers also provide training in oral rehydration therapy and this is vital in saving the lives of children suffering from diarrhoea. Our Programme Manager is currently making arrangements for the training of the first aid workers which will take place in the next few weeks.

The communities have also selected the poorest households who will receive goat and donkey loans and these families are receiving training in improved animal husbandry before being assisted to go to the local market to purchase their animals. Once the families have their goats there will be milk available for the children which will have a major impact on the ability of the families to provide better nourishment for their malnourished children. The goats' milk provides many minerals and vitamins essential for the growth of the children. In time the goats will have kids and this will provide the families with a potential source of income from the sale of kids which will enable them to buy medicines if their children fall sick.

Once the purchase of the livestock has been successfully completed we will turn our attention to the purchase of blankets and mosquito nets for the poorest households. This is an activity which has a major impact on the health of the children through reducing the incidence of malaria which is a major killer of children and providing the children with warmth at night which significantly reduces the prevalence of respiratory infections amongst the children. In appreciation of the great benefits to the health of children in providing them with warmth during the surprisingly cold winter, KIDS FOR KIDS is launching a new activity to provide jumpers for toddlers in the poorest families. We are also planning to establish Mothers' Knitting Circles to teach them to knit so that they can make jumpers for their older children and also for sale to richer families in the village. This is all part of our emphasis on ensuring that all the activities which we support are sustainable.