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Our Top 10 Recommended NGO Videos of 2014
Effective video making is a powerful form of storytelling. Videos, when done well, get to the heart of the matter quickly and leave people wanting to know more, do more, and donate more. These videos encompass all of those things and also made us want to delve more into not only their messages, but also…
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India Launches Massive Scale-Up of Pentavalent Vaccine
This month begins a massive scale-up of Pentavalent vaccine for India’s children. With the largest rate of child mortality in the world, this new, national immunization effort will help reduce the number of child deaths in India. The Pentavalent vaccine combines diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) with hepatitis B (hepB) and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib). Haemophilus influenzae type b kills 72,000 Indian children…
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Turkana Children in Kenya Continue to Suffer Malnutrition Amid Poor Health Services
Last week, I travelled from the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya, to Turkana County which is in the northern part of the country. Turkana is a largely pastoralist community with a population of 855,000 people. The county faces major problems, chief among them recurring droughts which has for years crippled the county’s economic development. The…
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Why Secondary Education for Girls Reduces Child Marriage, Early Pregnancies
UNESCO just released its report, Sustainable Development: Post 2015 Begins With Education, that takes a look at the critical importance of education on the post-2015 agenda. The core stance in the report portends that without greater access to education poverty eradication will become increasingly difficult to achieve by 2030. The betterment of women’s and girls’ lives…
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New Report on Child Mortality Trends Released
Today a collaborative report on trends in child mortality was released by the World Bank, UNICEF, the United Nations and the World Health Organization. According to the Levels and Trends in Child Mortality report, child mortality has dropped by 49 percent since 1990. Even so, Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) has yet to be reached.…
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Save the Date: Our Twitter Chat About #ChildHealth #MDG4 on August 18
August 18, 2014 marks 500 days to reach the Millennium Development Goals, the set of goals signed into action in September 2000 to reduce extreme poverty in a variety of topic areas from eradicating poverty to ensuring environmental sustainability. MDG 4, or reduce child mortality, laid out a concrete goal to reduce child mortality by…
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How Ethiopia is Scaling Midwifery to Save More Mothers, Newborns
Addis Ababa- In Ethiopia there are 4.9 million pregnancies each year of which 84% take place in rural areas. Here in Ethiopia, where the vast majority of women deliver at home, only 32% of maternal, newborn and child health needs are being met by midwives according to the newly released State of Midwifery Report. That is troubling…
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Have You Heard How Rice University is Saving Newborns?
Throughout the entire Mother’s Day month we will dedicate several posts to newborn and maternal health. We will feature programs and projects that are showing considerable progress in newborn health, are efficient and cost-cutting, and are even shaking up the newborn health and survival landscape with innovations in low-and middle-income countries. Even though it’s not May…
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How You Can Help End Poverty and Hunger
Did you know that Heifer International has been working for 70 years to end poverty and hunger around the world? Did you also know that they have also partnered with 20.7 million families in low and middle-income countries positively affecting the lives of over 100 million people? As Heifer International celebrates its 70th year, you…
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Why We’re Heading to South Africa Tomorrow #SocialGoodMomsJoburg
Building global connections both online and offline is the cornerstone of Mom Bloggers for Social Good. Tomorrow I, along with Social Good Mom and Global Team of 200 member Elizabeth Atalay (@elizabethatalay, Documama), will travel to Johannesburg to meet Social Good Moms partners as well as meet fellow Social Good Moms who live in South…
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Feeding Malnourished Children in Macha, Zambia #ZambiaHealth
I saw for the very first time in my life a severe acute malnourished child. He was two. I didn’t ask his name as not to pry into the intimate lives of two parents whose main concern was the life and health of their little one, but I will never forget his swollen face. I…
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Looking at Global Poverty Differently
The only way people can change perceptions about global poverty is to see a re-framing of the conversation. Re-framing the global poverty conversation is difficult, to be sure because communications specialists run the risk of being condescending in their approach, overly complex, or completely missing the mark altogether. Global media firm, Zodiak Media, took on…
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The Importance of Education for Girls
Much of yesterday’s Women Deliver 2013 conversation centered around education for girls. Without at least a primary education girls in poor and middle income countries cannot properly contribute to their country’s economy nor to their household. Girls who are fortunate to prolong marriage are able to attend school longer than if they are married away by…
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The Narrowing Health Gap Between Rich and Poor Countries
The World Health Organization released its annual World Health Statistics report. In the report the WHO looked at all of its global regions to see how countries fared in various global data stats including maternal and child mortality, life expectancy, and health coverage as examples. “Intensive efforts to achieve the MDGs have clearly improved health…
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4 Ways You Can Help Save Newborn Lives
Last week the Global Newborn Health Conference took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. As the first conference to gather leading experts and NGOs together working to reduce newborn mortality, one solid, unified voice emerged committed to saving more newborn lives not in lip service, but rather in actionable ideas and steps to reach Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4…
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A Compelling Case for a Justice Development Goal
Last Friday we participated in the UN Foundation’s digital rally toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We helped mark the 1000-day countdown to the MDGs and now that they are squarely in sight, there is much to do to ensure the goals are achieved. In reality, some won’t be met by the 2015 deadline and…
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HBO Presents New Documentary About Poverty – ‘American Winter’
UPDATE: Did you watch American Winter and want to help? Visit their Facebook page for updates. You can also donate to their Kickstarter campaign to help the families profiled in the documentary. Tonight at 9 PM on HBO a riveting new documentary, American Winter, will premiere to millions of people. The award-winning documentary shows the…
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Bill Gates On the Importance of Measurement in Global Health #BillsLetter
Every year Bill Gates, the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, writes an annual letter laying out his vision for the future of global health and poverty eradication. This year’s letter, which can be read at billsletter.com, espouses the critical importance of measurement in saving more lives. In fact, Gates uses measurement in…
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News on Haiti’s Current Reconstruction Achievements, Setbacks
Nearly three years after the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 12, 2010 and killed over 300,000 people there are significant signs of improvements in the reconstruction of the world’s poorest country despite subsequent natural disasters after the quake, notably hurricanes Issac and Sandy. However, when you read and hear multiple accounts…
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Save the Children Releases Report on Post-2015 Framework for Ending Poverty
As we all know the Millennium Development Goals are set to expire in 2015. While much progress has been made globally over the past twenty years to eradicate poverty and to meet each of the individual goals there is still much to do. With the MDGs on their way out, Save the Children has devised a…