Generally, I am a pretty positive person. I am an optimist. If I am being honest, I am also a control freak and a worrier. Most of my worries stem from things over which I have no control. As a parent of young children (two girls, aged seven and nine), my worry about things I can’t control in their lives hits another level.
I am very fortunate though. The basic things in my children’s lives I can control. They live in a secure home; we have a roof over our heads. We have heating, hot water, food – and very much more.
Imagine as a parent living in a country affected by drought, conflict, or food shortages, not knowing when you might have your next meal, and that as a result your children would go hungry. This hunger being so desperate that your children become seriously malnourished. This malnourishment not just affecting their day to day lives as children, but also their future growth, development and, ultimately, survival.
More than 50 million children’s futures are at risk because of malnutrition. 50 million children whose lives are threatened. To put this into context, 50 million children is nearly five times the number of children currently living in the UK.
Serious child malnourishment is one of the greatest and most overlooked humanitarian challenges of our time. Undernutrition is associated with 45% of all child deaths.
We must do something to change that. Working together, we can.
Save the Children’s Global Malnutrition Initiative (GMI) has been established to galvanise action to prevent, diagnose, and treat malnutrition. Our work currently focusses on some of the toughest places to be a child, including Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, but we don’t want our work to stop there.
Through rigorous research, the GMI seeks to test and scale up simplified, cost-effective approaches to diagnose and treat malnutrition within the community. The GMI is working to help children now and for the future, to design better ways to prevent malnutrition from happening.
The GMI isn’t about quick fixes (rarely there are any – but that’s another blog).
Working with our global community partners, it is about long-term sustainable activities within communities to change the way malnutrition is diagnosed and treated around the world.
We are always looking for innovative corporate brands and philanthropic individuals to partner with Save the Children and help scale up the impact we can deliver, together, for children through the GMI.
If you would like to find out how you or your company can be involved, please contact our team at [email protected]
