Improving children's health in villages in Darfur

It is 2014 and it is alarming to think that children are still dying from preventable diseases such as Malaria and Malnutrition.  We continue to help villagers and their children from succumbing to these tragic illnesses but with so many needing our help, we need your help too!

Our aim remains "to lift families out of abject poverty and give them a chance."  We do this be providing a package of sustainable projects that enable whole communities to build a future for their children, and their children, and so on.  Key to this is teaching them how to run the projects themselves but they also need simple things such as mosquito nets and blankets to protect their tiny offspring.

The five villages that we will adopt this year have now been chosen from a heart-breaking shortlist of 18.  All of those that applied for our help reported children dying from malaria and malnutrition just last year, but we cannot help them all. 

We would help them if we could, but it would take more money than we have. However, we cannot just abandon them - how can we when the rest of the world has turned its back on Darfur?  There are 5,200 families in these 13 villages with children under 10.   The smallest children are the most vulnerable.   Malaria is still the biggest killer across Africa. We do everything possible to prevent catastrophes, and children dying from malaria is a catastrophe. We are determined to provide all these families with mosquito nets before the next rains in July. 

Will you help please?

Thank you for supporting our project to protect children's health in the villages of Darfur.  Our simple help of providing a blanket and mosquito nets to keep disease carrying mosquitoes away from children, and to keep them warm at night, is continuing to help families to ensure their children are safe.

We enter 2014 full of hope and with the intention of adopting 5 more villages this year.  This means that 5 more communities will receive our package of help which is now preventing malnutrition and reducing child mortality.  However, with news of violence in South Sudan and uncertainty there, we are of course worried about the impact that this will have on Darfur too.   More families will need our help, food is scarce and children are starving. 

The International Community is good at reacting to emergencies, but to make a lasting difference it is important to look ahead.  Sustainability is key.  Our legacy is in the health of these children, in the availability of clean water, and in the standard of living of thousands of families.  In rural Darfur, people live in abject poverty and no-one is helping.  Without our nets and blankets, those that don't have them have to sleep directly on the sand, at risk from sandflies and mosquitoes and the deadly diseases that they carry.  The simplest infection can cause lasting disability or worse. 

The simple gift of a mosquito net can prevent a catastrophy for a family.  Please tell your friends how you have helped and ask them to help too.

Together we can save lives and build a future for Darfur.