A baby struggling to stay alive has already lost the ability to suckle. A toddler is too weak to sit unaided. A small child sits in the sun, vacantly staring into space hour after hour. She does not have the strength to run and play. These are the children ADRA’s child survival programs help.
Your compassion changes these hopeless situations and enables infants and small children to receive nutritious food and simple medical interventions. Undernourished children cannot thrive, and those who are plagued by malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and pneumonia will lose their lives without your help.
ADRA has matching opportunities for it’s child survival programs that allow your gift to increase fivefold. This means that your gift of $50 becomes $250, $75 becomes $375, $150 becomes $750, and so forth.
Your gift will permit ADRA’s child survival programs to expand, thus improving and saving the lives of more children worldwide. Again and again, our staff sees miracles happen. Children brought to our programs without hope prosper with simple medical help and loving care.
You may seldom think about children who live with constant diarrhea due to foul water and poor sanitation. You and I are so blessed to have clean, drinkable water in our homes. And we have bathrooms with toilets and sinks. Soap is readily available. Nutritious food is easily obtained. These are simple things that we often take for granted. Yet for much of the world, these are unattainable luxuries.
ADRA’s child survival programs teach the importance of clean water, of keeping water covered, and of bathing and keeping children clean. We teach mothers a simple intervention called oral rehydration therapy. This solution combining water, salts, and a form of sugar saves the lives of millions of children from the ravages of diarrhea.
"Mary is malnourished." The words filled Mary’s mother with despair. Her 3-year-old daughter was not thriving and weighed 24 pounds. The average healthy weight for a 3-year-old in Malawi is 31 pounds. What could she do?
Mary’s mother was referred to ADRA’s Positive Deviance (PD) Hearth program. Positive deviance is the belief that in every community there are individuals who employ uncommon strategies that help them find better solutions than the majority of the community. ADRA’s program has trained a group of women in each community to monitor the weight and health of children under 5 and guide their families in bringing those who are malnourished into good health.
"Tell me how to help my child," lamented Mary’s mother. "I can’t afford medicine." However, medicine was not needed in Mary’s case. Using food items that are readily available to all, ADRA has taught the PD women to make a nutritious porridge for at-risk children. For 12 days, Mary was fed a porridge made of maize flour, pigeon peas or soybeans, milk, groundnuts, eggs, vegetables, sugar, and, where possible, a little drop of oil.
At the end of 12 days, Mary had gained two pounds and had more energy. "I didn’t know that some foods are better than others or would change my daughter’s health," states Mary’s mother. "Now I will continue to give my daughter good foods to help her grow strong like other children."
Your support makes the difference. Children whom you may never hold in your arms are held in your heart when you make a gift to ADRA’s child survival programs. What’s more, whatever amount you send today will be matched fivefold, allowing you to help five times as many children live healthy lives.
You and I, who are blessed in so many ways, have the opportunity to share and make a difference in the lives of those living without hope.
Won’t you help provide a child with the basic care needed to ensure survival?
