New Zealand
Vietnam
Improving community health through education
When Save the Children surveyed mothers in the outer districts of Ho Chi Minh City about their knowledge of child health care, 70% felt they needed training in this area. So Save the Children New Zealand and Australia joined forces to provide mothers, teachers and school children in 3 villages with information on health, nutrition and traditional medicines.
The combined population of these villages is just over 30,000 - the majority of whom depend on farming and day labouring for their livelihoods. Most families find sufficient work to put food on the table, but not much else. Children are often withdrawn from school because their parents can’t afford to pay the fees, as happened to their parents before them. The parent’s lack of education has limited their literacy skills and their knowledge of health, nutrition and good hygiene practices.
Because of this limited knowledge, and poor rural health infrastructure, children in these villages are not as healthy as they should be. Thirty-eight percent of children were malnourished when tested 2 years ago. But Save the Children’s project is gradually improving community health knowledge, especially amongst mothers, through regular health education workshops held in the 3 village health centres. Save the Children also runs health education training courses for teachers at 6 local primary schools, and works with the village health centres to conduct health checks for pregnant women and young children.
Last year, Save the children provided health checks for over 4,600 children and health education for over 4,300 mothers.