Friday, May 21, 2010
Sheena's collaborative approaches: World Vision & UNICEF.
International relief agency, World Vision's relief efforts are divided into five major areas and one of them includes health care. Partnering with UNICEF and the District Office in Aceh, both organizations helped to fight to eliminate malaria in the tsunami-recovering province of Aceh, Indonesia.
The deadly disease is transmitted from one person to another by a female mosquito. This leaves the people in Aceh more vulnerable as it is still recovering from the tsunami, allowing more mosquitoes to breed in such conditions. This increases the chances of transmission of the disease. Approximately 300 million people are affected by malaria world-wide and between 1 and 1.5million people die each year. Children suffer a lower chance of survival due to their lower immune system.
The most direct goal that World Vision and UNICEF help to meet would be MDG #6 of Combating HIV/Aids and other diseases. However, it also helps to meet the goals of MDG #4 of Child Health through its campaigns. Also, by increasing the number of children that survive, more children would have an increased chance of receiving education and going to school. This targets the goals of MDG #3 of Universal Education.
As part of the malaria awareness campaign, a comedy skit, ‘The Naughty Mosquito’ was performed by the World Vision’s Child Friendly Space in an attempt not only to entertain, but also educate them about malaria and prevention methods. Also, educational events and activities regarding the disease reached out to more than 300 people. UNICEF provided 199,924 women and children with insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect them against the disease.
The challenge that World Vision and UNICEF were to ensure that the awareness campaigns were effective where people would share the information they have learnt to other villagers in their community even after both the organizations have exited Aceh. A suggestion to combat this challenge would be to first educate the people in the District Office in Aceh and passing the baton on to them- giving them the responsibility of educating their people. This would help the people to rely less on the international organizations and increase the province’s ownership of its own community.
We Loved11:48 AM
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