Our focus

Advocacy & engagement

Mobilise everyone. At all levels.

We can go farther together, for maximum impact on child health. We want others to adopt integrated approaches like Healthy Village in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and beyond. This will improve the lives of millions more children.

We aim for lasting change in child health by engaging local communities, government, entrepreneurs, and financial institutions from the beginning.

We advocate for child health by:

  • supporting communities demanding better services
  • strengthening civil society to work together for a child’s right to grow up healthy
  • using evidence to spur action on undernutrition
  • encouraging investment in integrated approaches

Development work often focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) or nutrition or health alone. We advocate for decisions and funds to flow in a coordinated way towards the end goal: child health. For example, supporting the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to meet  stunting reduction targets.

Zobayda Talukder a community changemaker

Our impact in Advocacy & engagement

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Covid-19 response

COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on life as we know it. It's hit vulnerable communities where we work hard; not only as a health crisis, but also a socio-economic one. Read about our COVID-19 response in Bangladesh here.

Healthy Village Approach

Our innovative Healthy Village approach, pioneered in Bangladesh and now in Ethiopia, tackles undernutrition (stunting) in children under five.

Community voices

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Embracing the Healthy Village Tracker

Bangladesh Expand article

No community development effort will be
sustainable unless local government is involved.
In the case of Bangladesh, we work with the Union Parishad (municipality).

We are happy that our Healthy Village Tracker, developed in 2020, is already adopted  by the Chairman of the Jainkathi Union Parishad.

“For achieving a Healthy Village, it is crucial to know the real-time progress of the community and to be aware of the challenges they are facing to achieve their target regarding WASH and Nutrition. With the Healthy Village Tracker, this data can be tracked automatically. Based on this data, the Union Parishad can easily determine what actions need to be performed to improve the health status of the community.” 

– Chairman of the Jainkathi Union Parishad.

 

From the yellow, to the green zone

Rubina's story Expand article

Rubina Begum lives in Chalitabunia village in Patuakhali, Bangladesh. Her first child is 6 months old. His name is Hasib. Rubina is so happy since the pregnancy and birth of her child. She signed up for growth monitoring.

Soon after, Rubina participated in a courtyard meeting about stunting. Her son’s height and weight were measured in the session. The results were not good. Hasib was in the yellow zone in both height and weight charts. Rubina became very concerned. She heard from the meeting that it is possible to change this within the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (from pregnancy to 2 years).

Rubina took steps immediately: washing her hands with soap and water before feeding her child and after cleaning his bottom. Washing the  family’s clothes and sheets regularly. Cleaning her baby’s hands and trying to keep him from putting dirty objects into his mouth.

Since then, Hasib has moved from the yellow zone to the green zone on the growth charts. Rubina is now quite happy. She will continue monitoring Hasib’s growth through visits to the nearest health clinic.