November 19, 2009

NEW YORK CITY/PREAH VIHEAR, CAMBODIA – In tribute to Universal Children's Day (November 20) international humanitarian agency Church World Service says it is intensifying its focus on the world's most vulnerable children, under the banner "All Our Children."

The relief, development and refugee assistance agency efforts aim first to further shape and expand its existing child-centered programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, with concentration on small child and maternal nutrition and health, access to education, greater school safety, especially for girls, and protection for children and their rights.

The initiative recreates the spirit of the agency's original All Our Children campaign, a campaign spearheaded by CWS in the early months following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That effort raised more than $2 million in funds and material aid for Iraqi children affected by the war, with assistance ranging from desperately needed medical and hygiene supplies for children's hospitals and institutions to trauma care and conflict resolution-themed puppet shows.

Rev. John L. McCullough, CWS Executive Director and CEO, says the agency is strengthening its commitment to the needs of vulnerable children in the world's poorest countries "because we fear for the future of the next generation.

"In terms of hunger and nutrition, there is enough food in the world to feed the world and its children," said McCullough, "but to cite United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at this week's food summit in Rome, there are still 200 million children under age 5 in the developing world who are undernourished and stunted in their growth. Six million of them die every year, from causes related to malnutrition.

"And the U.S. is not immune," he said. "The Department of Agriculture has just reported there are now 16.7 million malnourished children, a significant increase over last year."

CWS's All Our Children strategy centers concurrently on immediate, critical interventions such as hunger and malnutrition and on broader, longer-range child development needs.

In Cambodia almost half of children under five years of age are malnourished, according to a report last year by the World Health Organization. * One Church World Service program in Cambodia's remote Kompong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces is tackling that crisis, by improving child and maternal nutrition and health and helping communities expand their capacity to sustain those gains.

In collaboration with the UN World Food Program's Mother and Child Health Project, CWS is providing food supplements for children between 6 to 24 months, for their mothers, and for pregnant women.

The CWS Cambodia health team works closely with local village health volunteers to incorporate monitoring practices, tracking infant growth with weight and age charts. Mothers and families are learning the importance of breastfeeding their infants, how to prepare supplementary food and micronutrient supplements for their small children, and gain further childcare education in related WFP trainings.

During the program's 2009 phase, CWS staff saw lower child mortality rates based on problems in childbirth. 60 percent of babies monitored gained weight normally, the remaining babies being additionally stressed due to other illnesses.

"There is the nourishment of the body and the nourishment of the spirit and intellect," says CWS Deputy Director, Head of Programs, Maurice Bloem on the needs of the world's children.

Bloem says CWS's All Our Children effort includes small child nutrition programs in other countries such as Indonesia and Pakistan but notes that the 63-year-old organization is also focusing on child and youth empowerment programs. The agency's innovative Giving Hope program in East Africa helps orphaned youths, now ca ring for their siblings, learn how to start small businesses, build homes, grow food for meals and market, and form youth collaboratives to help other orphaned peers.

In violence-torn Afghanistan kids are finding safety, healing, welcome, books and computer access in a Kabul children's rehabilitation center supported by CWS.

In Serbia, Roma children who were working in disease-riddled dumps are now able to enter a first-class primary education program, through a CWS-led collaboration between school and municipal authorities and the Roma families – a project that also provides job skills training for parents and enables them to earn incomes.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, Church World Service will intensify its focus on community-based child assistance efforts in Brazil, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. Since 2004, CWS has provided more than $1 million in support for programs with vulnerable children in Latin America.

Anthony Musila, a CWS Giving Hope youth caregiver in Ndithini, Kenya, has realized dreams that progressed from selling produce from a kitchen garden to running two barbershops employing other members of his collaborative youth group.

On Universal Children's Day, Anthony's feelings today probably sum up the dream of all the world's children: "The future is smiling at me now."

For more information on Church World Service, its child-centered and other development, advocacy and refugee assistance programs, see: http://www.churchworldservice.org/.

* Reference: World Health Organization, "Nutrition in Cambodia 2008," in conjunction with Ministry of Health of Cambodia: http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/7290A421-9624-4CD1-A0DE-A79AA67562A4/0/NutCom2008.pdf.

Church World Service