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Ronald McDonald House Charities Announces Curamericas Global as a Grant Recipient on January 25, 2010-MSN
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Ronald McDonald House Charities Grant Recipient, Curamericas Global, is delighted to announce the implementation of the water and sanitation project: Preventing Child Deaths from Diarrheal Disease in Liberia (Sanitation Component of the Nehnwaa Project) |
This is one of the robust 4x4 vehicles used to navigate the deteriorated jungle roads in the project catchment area.
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Ronald McDonald House Charities Awards Curamericas Global a grant that will strengthen the sanitation component of the ongoing Nehnwaa Child Survival Project, which provides community-based primary health care to a catchment of approximately 150,000 inhabitants in north-central Liberia. The ethnic group of this region is nearly 100% Mano, and in the Mano language, "Nehnwaa" means "protecting children." This Nehnwaa Child Survival Project is supported by the collaboration of Curamericas Global and our in-country implementation partner, Ganta United Methodist Hospital (GUMH). GUMH is one of Liberia's strongest non-governmental organizations and it shares Curamericas' mission in saving children's lives.
Liberia's fourteen-year civil war, which ended in 2003, devastated its civil society, infrastructure, and health care system, leaving atrocious child and maternal mortality and morbidity rates in its wake. North-Central Liberia has one of the highest under-five mortality rates in the world at 142 deaths per 1000 live births. Seventeen percent are unnecessary deaths due to easily preventable diarrheal disease (WHO World Health Statistics 2007). Thus, with the assistance of Ronald McDonald House Charities, this project will reduce the appalling number of children that die every year due to easily preventable diarrheal disease by improving hygienic behaviors (e.g. hand washing, water treatment and storage, and feces disposal) and expanding access to clean water and sanitary latrines.
More specifically, the project will deploy four Water and Sanitation (Wat-San) Officers, trained and mentored regularly by a Curamericas Liberia Program Specialist. Wat-San Officers will access remote villages despite treacherous roadways and will transport latrine and well construction materials with a durable 4x4 vehicle. This vehicle, funded by Ronald McDonald House Charities, will also be used in the emergency transportation of sick children to health facilities.
In addition, Wat-San Officers will mobilize villages to form community health committees and help them identify their needs and draft a community water and sanitation plan. Focus group discussions with villagers will identify the barriers to proper hygiene practices, which will guide the project's Behavior Change Communication strategy and messages. In each village we will train and deploy a Community Health Volunteer (CHV) and a Care Group of mother peer educators to provide door-to-door education using visual aids on proper water treatment and storage; proper hand washing; safe feces disposal; and breastfeeding, the use of oral rehydration therapy, and zinc supplementation for treating cases of diarrhea. Under the guidance of the Wat-San Officers, the villagers will build their own community latrines and wells with materials funded by RMHC (e.g. roofing, concrete, rebar, PVC pipes, hand tools, and hand pumps for wells) matched by their labor and home-made bricks. This unique blend of community collaboration and door-to-door education maximizes donor funds by precisely targeting services to those children most in need, and this achieves verifiable, lasting results. Overall, the sanitation component of the Nehnwaa Child Surival Project shares Ronald McDonald House Charities mission of helping children to reach their fullest potential.
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