How can we work together to reduce child mortality around the world?

Question

Worldwide, 10.5 million children under 5 will die this year, most of them die from easily preventable causes. How can we work together to reduce child mortality on a global scale?

Answer 1

Child mortality is based on quite a wide and varied number of things. My advice is choose a cause that is contributing to the problem but has meaning for you. Get involed. There are a lot of wonderful organizations doing the work you already care about. Even a monetary contribution would allow these organizations to buy additional vaccine to distribute. The best answer is ... care. When you care you talk (informing others) and give (protecting others). I think it is wonderful that you are thinking this way. Please, do what you can. Have the courage to make a difference, even a small one.

Answer 2

Okay, that 10.5 million has a large percentage from malnutrition. The best solution to this problem is weight gain pills. If weight loss pills work, then so do weigh gain pills. Don't be skeptical, its true. Food is expensive, so this option is much better. What we have to do is finance a large scale operation that will get these pills to these children. No scams, no greediness from our part, just a good christian program meant to feed and save innocent children. I was actually going to donate the 8 eight bucks a month to save the children, but how do you know where the money goes, seriously. If you are serious about this, and im pretty sure you are since money is not an issue to you, then you should really look into what im saying. First we should try it on a small scale, with probably a hundred starving children see how if they gain weight and how they respond. If it works here, then it should work with thousands, and even millions. The only real thing that matters here is if you have good intentions. I would love to help the needy, since i am comfortable and dont need to make millions since it wouldnt mean anything to me anyway. Then again Danny, you do know that the government discards millions of pounds and dollars in food every year so the economy is better. If there is nothing in the way in terms of legalities, then this plan should work. Good luck and God bless. Please email me if you think my idea is worthwhile.

Answer 3

I think we can work together to reduce child mortality around the world by first identifying the 5 most common causes that generally cause the death of the 10.5 million children under 5. Are the causes the same globally? If so, then educate the worldwide public of the simple steps to prevent the deaths of the babies utilizing all of the advertising mediums available today.

Answer 4

How can we work together to reduce child mortality around the world?

Worldwide, 10.5 million children under 5 will die this year, most of them die from easily preventable causes. How can we work together to reduce child mortality on a global scale?

Answer 5

I'm retired Army. I have served in Africa, Iraq the Balkans and some pretty poor countries in Eastern Europe so I've seen some sick kids. I remember rolling into a refugee camp in Northern Iraq after the first gulf war to see a family burying their child in a shallow grave. I helped evac a mother and a very sick child that same day, hopefully the baby made it...

You've mentioned you're an advocate of de-mining? Well, while I was in the military we taught and helped establish a highly effective de-mining academy in Bosnia. Meanwhile, the UNMAC (UN Mine Action Committee) sat back on their duffs and had NGO parties...

My point is I've seen it and lived the reality of this problem. I also know that the tree-hugging NGO's and the UN methods do not work without stability. In order to accomplish stability, somebody with military capability has to establish order...

All the money and good intentions in the world only breed ineffective results and organizations such as the UN. Feeding the children does nothing unless all the problems of the region are addressed. If the resources are combined with a stable environment results can occur. Unfortunately, sometimes the military may need to go in a break a few things first...

I rolled back through the same area of Northern Iraq during OIF. The area had stabilized and there were no more refugee camps, but plenty of healthy kids...

Answer 6

It must start with our understanding of nature. I do not consider CPS and the like to be the answer, (like taking the kid and placing them in someone else's hands and give them money to raise them?)
What we need to understand is the way most American children are. For the most part, 40 years ago few children were on presciption meds, and those who took any often had a prescription for them. In America the answer to all childhood illness was vacination and antibiotics. Now America has a genetic weakness, which gets weaker every time.
Think of the immune system as a butterfly in a cocoon. The wings of the butterfly are strenthened by the struggle to get out of the cocoon. Well, I feel the same about immune systems. They are built up in childhood by these life-threatening illnesses. You are also speaking of a place that is much like America in the latter 1800s and early 1900s. Half of our country told the other half what to do. Wealthy families became impoverished overnight. Although the slaves were freed, nothing was done for indentured servants.
So many are diagnosed with diabetes and then complications for diabetes. Everyone seems to have someone they need to sue or some good reason why they should be on welfare and medicare. This is only in our own country!
One friend of mine also pointed out that if there are no suffering children, then some aid already given would stop. So they believe if it were not needed, that people would stop begging for money for "this precious child who has no shoes". Also there are stories of governments or the wealthy taking aid sent for the poor. We should stop it all, and insist governments do what they should do: to create a society to provide and protect their citizens.If they do not, let the UN take care of it.

Answer 7

The way we can reduce children mortality around the world is by empowering the people of the country. For example: In Ethiopia where you have visited do you know the government makes a significant contribution to the countries children mortality rate. The government for instance as stated by congressman Harry Johnston has “jailed more political prisoners than the entire continent of Africa combined.” Now imagine what will happen to their children and because of the way the judicial system is set up by the government to serve the interest of the ruling party, it takes at least around 2-3 years for a simple trial. In 2005 there was a national election in Ethiopia and the people (including the parents) elected leaders they believed will help them reduce poverty, disease, and all other social problems. But the tyrant, Melese Zenawi, refusing to step down declared state of emergency day after election and massacred innocent civilians according to the inquiry commission finding. In addition a lot of youth have fled the country, unknown numbers have been killed and according to reputable source 40,000 thousands have disappeared. Does this sound like a place where children are safe? The big question is, what can we do to create a safe place for children. To reduce this problem around the world, we need a new strategy to empower the people (the parents.)
[P.S.] To see a striking example of how the government doesn’t care about children go to the link below and read the testimony.

Answer 8

The answer is easy, but the process is hard. We can eliminate a lot of the problems by removing the root causes. Corrupt governments, terrorist organizations, and tyrants all contribute overwhelmingly to the poverty and mortality rates worldwide. If we can work together for other governments and exercise economic and military measures to remove these problems and then bring in humanitarian and diplomatic measures to correct the devestation left by those who are in power now. The problem is, is that we live in a society where we're under the false assumption that you can talk about the problems with those causing the problems and then they're going to suddenly wake up and correct the mistakes. This is not reality and it is not practical. People are dying as we sit around and "answer" these questions. We and other countries lack the political fortitude and backbone to go in and deal with this stuff, because someone might get hurt. Well, if we're truly to buy into our own rhetoric and truly want to fix the problems, we'll stop holding hands and thinking that the world will change if we just talk about it and simply throw money and awareness at the issue. In order to do it right, someone is going to have to die to save the lives of millions, especially children.

Answer 9

I may upset some people, but I honestly believe there needs to be a program set up which gives women of child-bearing age food in exchange for accepting birth control. And I don't mean the pill. I mean something such as the shot or I have heard a system similar to Norplant is in the works. Yes, some women won't be able to tolerate the shot and that could be easily documented so that they could be excluded from the exchange. I just think the mothers should be held accountable in some way and not be allowed to keep having babies that they can't care for.

I also think more effort needs to be put into teaching people how to provide a decent shelter and food for their families on extremely limited resources. There are many houses which can be built almost entirely from materials found on site to keep them out of the elements and give them a clean place to sleep. And a garden can be grown anywhere if the person is provided with the appropriate seeds for their climate. Water shouldn't even be an issue these days. Wells can be dug quickly and a cheap filters can be installed to provide decent water. And if their drinking water must be boiled first, that shouldn't be a huge problem either. Teach these people hygiene and cleanliness, teach them how diseases are spread. I just don't think enough is being done to get to the root of the problems. Organizations just throw money and supplies at the problems instead of teaching them how to prevent the problems in the first place.

I know this question was focused on child mortality. But if adults are taught a better way to live, then the children will be better cared for and less likely to suffer in situations that will lead to their death.

Answer 10

This is undoubtedly an emotive subject, and for me who works with childen very much so. It takes a question such as this to bring this problem to the awareness of some people that not only the government has a hand in reducing child mortality sustantially, but we also have a duty to play a part as small as it may be, it can still make a huge difference to at least one child.

How many of the people who make a lot of noise are actual donors? they have a saying here in England and that is charity begins at home, how true this is, more needs to be given especially to the countries that account for the most child deaths in the world. Unicef does some stellar work to address the largely preventable deaths, which is around 10.5 million children under the age of 5, education also plays a big part and a major role in it's efforts to fight disease like in Africa the usage of insecticides to help control dieases such as
malaria. The deaths of these children are preventable, and together as a team with the government it will and can be preventable.

Answer 11

This is a multi-faceted question without a simple solution. First and foremost is education. The education needs to be on many fronts. Child care, nutrition, health, sanitation, etc. Then we need to look at the 'haves' and 'have nots'. In this country alone, there are hundreds of thousands of children that die or become deathly ill from preventable causes. How is that possible in one of the most wealthy countries in the world? If the US can't even manage to take care of the children here, what can the expectation be for other countries that don't even have clean water.

The simple (and yes, liberal) opinion would be to stop spending funds on war to kill people and take those monies to bring clean water and simple vaccines to more children.

Since I know that will never happen, how about if every US company were to take let's say .5 from the sale of every good to go straight to pay for water treatment and vaccines. Think about it, an average trip to the grocery store, a family of four purchases about $150 to $250, but think of the article count. Let's go conservative and say the article count is only 150 pieces x .5, that's $7.50. Now take that and think of how many people are at your local grocery store on a typical Saturday, times the number of grocery stores in your city, times the number of cities. It's exponential. 5 cents from the sale of a product will not put that much of a dent into the company's gross profit. Since that is just grocery stores, keep going, think clothing, electronics, books, furniture, etc. Of course, the company shouldn't increase the price to pass on the cost to the consumer (wishful thinking).

Once there is the money, the biggest problem is the management of it and who that would be. Unfortunately, when you are talking about sums that high, there is bound to be problems, so a good business model needs to be found and followed. Then it cannot be associated with other organizations, religious foundations / organizations, political ideologies. It needs to be completely public with the funds, and transparent with it's activities. There needs to be little or no overhead. No one should get fat from this, other than the children that have no food!

Just think what this world could do if every industrialized nation did the same, and all those funds were taken to food, water, health and education. That number would be substantially less than 10.5 million.