Children’s health and nutrition charity

Tackling illness and malnutrition

Every day children are dying before they have a chance to live, millions dying annually from preventable causes. It’s a combination of malnutrition, infections they weren’t immunised against and illnesses that could be easily treated with the right health care. It can so easily be different.

World Vision focuses on three essential ways to improve health– especially for 0-five year olds: good nutrition, protection from infection and disease, and access to essential health services.

Together, we can protect children’s health and well-being, so they can grow-up healthy and in safety, even in the toughest places.

Supporting children to grow up healthy

Because of you, we can help families tackle key health and nutrition challenges:

A Ugandan mother holds up her baby girl, blue sky in the background

Malnutrition

Joyce, 22, lives in a refugee settlement in Uganda with her two-month-old daughter, Monday. Joyce learnt how to protect her child from malnutrition at World Vision’s nutrition programme. Her biggest fear was losing her baby to malnutrition and hunger because she doesn’t receive enough nutritious food at the refugee camp.

Now, Joyce is confident with breastfeeding, spotting the early signs of malnutrition. She’s even using what she’s learnt to lead a cooking demonstration in her village to empower other mothers to prepare highly nutritious food for their children.

Kenyan mother sat between her two young children

Hygiene

We work with communities to understand their needs and provide simple improvements that help people maintain personal and environmental hygiene - like Aruo's family in Kenya, pictured above.

Aruo's community are benefiting from the toilets and hand washing facilities we installed. Mother of five, Aruo explains, “Children and families in this village now enjoy good health and we no longer fear that out younger ones will die for diarrhoea diseases.”

Female doctor holds out an injection over a desk, leaning towards a mother. The child on her lap looks nervously at the syringe

Health

In emergency settings World Vision Mobile Health teams visit places, like this internally displaced persons camp in Somalia, to provide basic health services including growth monitoring and free vaccinations for children and young people.

You can be part of World Vision’s lifesaving work:

Vaccinating children from preventable diseases

Our TB programmes have an 88% treatment success rate

Supporting mums to feed their children nutritious meals

We reach another child with nutritious food every minute

Training health workers to help give children quality healthcare

Our therapeutic feeding programmes have an above industry standard 89% cure rate

Sponsor a child today, improve their life forever

In a world where 1 in 9 people don’t have enough food to eat, help make sure children have access to nutritious food.

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A community health worker from Zambia smiles at the camera

Breaking barriers to healthcare

Phales knew the distance between her village and the nearest health facility was a huge obstacle for people seeking medical attention.

But everything changed when World Vision and its partners came to train her and other community health workers on the Free Zambia Malaria Project. Phales is one of 525 community health workers in her district that have been trained through the project.

With her newly acquired knowledge and skills, Phales can provide critical medical services and education to her community.

Zambian community health worker rides her bike to the medical post

Helping the community access healthcare

In her first month, Phales tended to 71 people with malaria but this has now reduced to 1-3 cases a month. She shares, "From the time I was trained, I have been able to not only work, but I am well informed about malaria, unlike before."

"I am very happy because of the knowledge that World Vision facilitated to me to help my community," Phales adds with a joyful face.

Phales was elated to see the positive impact of the malaria prevention measures she had implemented. No longer did people have to travel long distances to receive medical attention. They trusted and believed in the prevention and treatment methods that Phales and her fellow team of community health workers provided within the community.

Support health workers like Phales