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The issues

Eradicate child poverty

Poverty is a severe and constant constraint shaping how children live, learn and grow. Millions of children around the world miss out on their childhood as a result of poverty.

Poverty deprives them of the capabilities needed to survive, develop and thrive. They are more likely to become malnourished, get sick, less likely to complete school, and more vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, violence, discrimination.

baby rupa

Antora, 20, and her baby Rupa, three months old, live in the Modhubag slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Antora is excited to be a mother, she can’t stop kissing tiny Rupa. “The best things about my baby are her smile, her cuddles and the sounds she has started to make - she’s really trying to talk” she says, but Rupa is suffering from malnutrition and Antora can see her getting smaller. Born weighing 3kg, she now weighs less than 2kg and is continuing to lose weight. Antora can’t breastfeed because she hasn’t got enough nutrition in her body to produce milk. She hasn’t got any money to buy food because her husband isn’t earning enough - he earns between $1 and $2 US a day pulling a rickshaw. Because of a lack of food, Antora has lost her appetite now and can only manage the occasional bit of rice with some salt.

lochebe

Lochebe, two, is malnourished and eats porridge at a Save the Children supported Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centre in South Sudan.

rahow

Rahow, two, eats from a packet of high-nutrient peanut paste that he received from Save the Children.

djamilou

Djamilou, 21 months-old, being monitored by a nurse at Save the Children’s clinic for severely malnourished children, Aguie, Maradi, Niger. He was admitted to the clinic on 27 June weighing 5.1kg. "This year has been a truly bad year. It’s really difficult to find enough food to feed the children. Our store is empty. We eat – maybe two times a week."

chofatou

Chofatou, 11 months, at the Save the Children supported stabilization clinic in Aguie, Niger. These in-patient clinics are for extreme cases of malnutrition and cases with additional complications. Mothers staying in the clinics while their child is being treated are provided with food.


Hunger

Poverty is the principal reason so many people around the world are hungry. People living in poverty cannot afford nutritious food for their families. This makes them weaker and less able to earn money.

Hunger can have life-long consequences. Children who are chronically malnourished, or ‘stunted’, don’t just fail to thrive physically; they also fall behind in developing cognitive skills.

Millions of children face the everyday challenge of not knowing where their next meal is coming from—a situation that is exacerbated by persistent poverty, rising food prices, the effects of climate change and a growing gap between rich and poor.

The first 1000 days of a child's life from conception to two years are crucial for a child's physical and mental development. Children who are malnourished in the womb and during the first two years of life are often permanently mentally and physically damaged.

urban poverty slums

Families set up camp next to a railway line in Delhi while they look for work. In India, nearly two million children under five die each year from preventable diseases.

fabrice

Fabrice, 6, at a stabilisation centre in Mbuji Mayi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

nemata

Nemata, 4, at her home in Burkina Faso. Nemata's family has lived on this land for generations, but the drought has meant there is no longer enough to eat.

Child mortality

The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, from pregnancy to the age two, are critical. A balanced diet can protect children from the mental and physical effects of malnutrition.

Over a third of all deaths in children under the age of five in developing countries are linked to malnutrition.1

Hunger and malnutrition are the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Deprived of the right nutrition, hungry children are especially vulnerable and become too weak to fight off disease and may die from common infections like measles and diarrhoea.

1 WHO (2014) “Children: reducing mortality”

poverty learn to read

Aruna’s mother cannot read so Aruna reads letters from the village committee and school to help her with literacy development.

poverty child protection education

“I have no dreams for myself any more. I’m living an awful life. But I dream that my son will be educated and have a normal life.”

Boosting Literacy

Almost 800 million people around the world can’t read or write. Illiteracy means they are trapped in a cycle of poverty with limited opportunities for employment.

For poor children, a good education is the key to changing their lives and their futures. It can mean they have access to better jobs, lead richer lives and fulfill their potential. If all students left school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty.4

Although many governments have eliminated the biggest obstacle to enrollment by abolishing school fees, other financial barriers such as uniforms, food, travel costs and exam fees still prevent the poorest, most disadvantaged children from going to school.

3 UNESCO (2015) “Adult and Youth Literacy”
4 UNESCO (2011) “Education Counts Towards the Millennium Development Goals”

water ethiopia

Zahara used to collect water from a pond 15 kilometres away.

Water and sanitation

Unclean water and a lack of basic sanitation are undermining efforts to end extreme poverty. It is estimated that every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates $4 in increased economic opportunity.6 Universal access to water and sanitation would result in an estimated $32 billion in economic benefits per year globally from reductions in health care costs and increased productivity from reduced illness. 7

A lack of reliable, clean water access also has deep socio-economic impacts. Women are more than twice as likely as men to be responsible for water collection. On average, women and girls in developing countries walk six kilometres each day to collect water8 – time which could be spent in school or at work. More than half of the girls who drop out of primary school in sub-Saharan Africa do so because of a lack of separate toilets and easy access to safe water.9

5 UNICEF and WHO (2015) "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water"
6 WHO (2012) “Global costs and benefits of drinking-water supply and sanitation interventions to reach the MDG target and universal coverage”
7 Ibid.
8 UN Human Rights Commission (2010) “The Right to Water” 
9 The ONE Campaign "Water and Sanitation"

may yoi ching

May Yoi Ching, 19, received training in tailoring. She now trains local teenagers, helping her to generate an income.

training poverty

Ruksana, 16, is learning to become a tailor through the Jigyasa Centre in New Delhi.

Building a better life

Supporting sustainable agricultural practice is twice as effective in reducing poverty as supporting growth in any other sector. We are working with partners to invest in local communities by sharing skills, technology, farming knowledge and other agricultural resources to help families take charge of their futures. By adopting productive, sustainable and resilient crop and livestock production practices, parents can improve their economic wellbeing, helping to eliminate child poverty so that their children can face the future with hope.

Supporting parents is key to fighting poverty. By improving the knowledge and skills within a community, jobs are created, providing more stable sources of income and giving people more access to health, education and opportunities to create a better life for children and their families.

We share a vision

A world where all children have the chance to grow up free from poverty, deprivation and exclusion.

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Giving in action

Every day millions of families in extreme poverty struggle to survive. We’re working in the poorest parts of the world help the families increase their incomes and give their children a better future.

thumbnail harira and chaibou

Chaibou needs to leave his wife

Harira and Chaibou make their money collecting sticks and straw to sell. They are one of the poorest families in their village in the Maradi region of Niger.

Niger | Africa

thumbnail the ugly truth about hunger

A mother’s search for food

Nana has given birth to six daughters, but has only two left. Four of her children died as a result of poverty, malnourishment and disease.

Niger | Africa