I have not had any responses to many emails I sent out. So this week I went to UNICEF’s web site and listened to the global radio service, they have many archived interviews with correspondence around the world.
What I am finding the most interesting is the realization that to reduce poverty we need to look at the whole child, family, community. The care needs to be comprehensive and the interventions need to be an opportunity to teach. In the podcast Mr. Morgan commented that 9 million children die before the age of five, and this is the lowest on record. Sub-Sahara and South Asia are still among the highest countries where children are dying. The children who are missing out on the potential care are found in rural areas, city slums, girls, and the poorest communities. According to R. Morgan the best approaches to ensuring better living conditions is an integrated package where families receive medicine and vaccinations, advice, and an outreach to the communities from the clinics and outposts which bring a network of services(Chevighy & Morgan, 2010).
One service is community sanitization. This service brings the community together and discusses how they can improve hygiene and sanitation. They look at where the fecal matter is and look and changes, they also discuss hand washing and body hygiene. The concern is the global economic down fall which has challenged programs to look at new policies and interventions that will help these poorest nations. The recommendation is cash supplements because it seem to be the most effective and affordable way to continue the services.
References:
Chevighy, B. (Director), & Morgan, R. (Performer) (2010, September 12). Equity in child survival: An opportunity to do things better. UNICEF. [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/unidef-podcast/id77700259
Chris, I too had to listen to the podcasts and I found them quite interesting! When thinking about poverty and ways that we can help, I think you nailed it. We need to take the opportunity to teach about sanitization and the resources that are set up to help. I remember reading somewhere, that it is the children who have the best chance of getting out of poverty. This means that we need to give them as many opportunities as we can.
ReplyDeleteI found similiar information in my research also. It is shocking that so many children die before the age of 5. We see the commercials on t.v to contribute to different countries and they show the children who are living in poverty and sometimes it does not seem real. I think hard facts reflect more of the reality. It is not just small portions of the population, there is an abundant amount of children suffering.
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