 |
An initiative of Free The Children | |||
|
An initiative of Free The Children | |||
Understanding the world around you is the first step towards making positive change. From clean water, to child labour, you can explore important topics with Issue Backgrounders.
Good health can be broadly defined as freedom from bodily or mental disease. When people are in good health, they can work to sustain themselves and their families. They can attend school to acquire knowledge and skills. Women can plan for and deliver healthy children who have bright futures. Men and women can both enjoy lives filled with hope, independence and dignity.
When health gives way to illness, people are less able to work or go to school. Adding the effects of extreme poverty like lack of food, clean water and sanitation compounds the seriousness of the situation. If adults die, they leave behind orphans whose lives are at great risk. Without adequate prenatal care, pregnant women are especially vulnerable to diseases. They may pass on the diseases to their children or die before actually giving birth. High child mortality rates show that many newborns die within days of birth.
All of this is the harsh reality for millions of people living in developing countries. HIV/AIDS is decimating entire demographics with millions of orphans left to care for younger siblings. Finding money to treat diseases, both simple and complex, is often just a dream. Although HIV/AIDS gets most of the attention, other illnesses like malaria and diarrhoea are a huge problem where there is a lack of sanitation and basic health care.
Experiences like SARS and the Avian Flu have given North Americans a glimpse into the realities of widespread disease. And, while diseases like HIV/AIDS are a definite reality in North America, antiretroviral drugs and special treatments have extended life spans and allowed those who can afford them to live a more normal life.
In communities where there is little money, no hospital and poor access to a doctor, easily treatable problems become very dangerous. For instance, malaria infects almost 300 million people each year and kills more than one million annually. Almost 90 percent of those deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa. Believe it or not, simple, cheap mosquito nets can prevent transmission by up to 50 percent, and lower the deaths of children under five by 25 percent.
Women and children are particularly vulnerable to poverty-related health problems. Unable to reach any hospital or clinic, many pregnant women must give birth in dirty rooms, without medicine or sanitation. Every year, more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth: that's almost one death every minute of every day.
World Health Organization, "Millennium Development Goals: Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases." www.who.int/mdg/goals/goal6/en/index.html
United Nations, "Only With Your Voice – Millennium Development Goals Youth Action Guide" p.10. http://tig.phpwebhosting.com/themes/mdg/action_guide_en.pdf
World Watch Institute, State of the World 2004, p.10, World Health Organization, Data and Statistics. http://www.who.int/research/en/
 
Youth leading global change is the movement of our time. We Day is the manifestation of this movement. 
|
 
Free The Children believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change.
|
 
Me to We is an innovative social enterprise that provides people with better choices for a better world.
|
About 
