About EVERY ONE
We stopped children dying from basic illnesses in rich countries a century ago. With your help, we can end it for good in poor countries too.
24,000 children under the age of five will die today – their lives cut short before they’d really begun. Most of their deaths could have been prevented. But the reality is that not every child has an equal chance of survival. Children from the poorest communities are most likely to die.
A small number of diseases and conditions are the biggest killers of young children today. Pneumonia, measles, diarrhoea, malaria, HIV and AIDS and complications during pregnancy and after birth cause more than 90% of deaths in children under five. Children who are malnourished are at far greater risk of dying from these causes because they're too weak to fight disease.
Proven, low-tech and inexpensive solutions exist to stop children dying. But they’re simply not being deployed on the scale needed to tackle the problem. What we need is the will – from politicians, the public, aid agencies, companies, EVERY ONE – to make it happen on a global scale.
We are working with people across the world to ensure that every child will have the chance to live past their fifth birthday. From Niger to Nottingham, Sheffield to Sierra Leone. We are working together and for every child to make sure that world leaders keep their promise and that every child has a right to life.
What needs to change
In 2000, world leaders came together and promised to cut the number of children under five who die and maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. These still remain to be the most off track promises made by world leaders to date. We are putting pressure on the coalition government to ensure these promises get back on track at the United Nations (UN) Poverty Summit in September and you can be a part of making that happen. We can do it – but only if we act now.
What is Save the Children doing?
- We are collecting 100,000 thumbprints to present to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, as a petition asking him to take a leadership role at the UN Poverty Summit this September
- We are mobilising 60 million people all over the world – in rich and poor countries – to push their governments to act
- We are inspiring EVERYONE to press for change across the world, ensuring 9 million children are saved
- We are calling upon the government to deliver a strong action plan for reducing under-5 child deaths and child mortality at the United Nations (UN) Summit in September
- We are doubling our investment in our child survival programmes to help reach 50 million women and children a year by 2015
What you can do
EVERY ONE of us has a role to play in saving children’s lives. Join our campaign and press for change now.