Over 400 million children have no access to safe water. Without access to clean water and proper sanitation, disease spreads and health suffers.

Lack of clean water also leads to malnutrition as families do not have enough water to grow healthy foods. Malnutrition in early childhood can stunt growth, and hinder brain development and children’s capacity to learn. This reduces their ability to develop skills that are critical to their life chances and development.

Improving the health of children is one responsibility among many in the fight against poverty. Healthy children become healthy adults who create better lives for themselves, their communities and their countries.

It doesn’t take much to save a child’s life in the developing world!

By providing mosquito nets and medicine, children’s lives will be saved from the devastating effects of malaria and other diseases.

Without the essentials of life, like good nutrition, children are made vulnerable. Through Children in Crisis – Health & Disability, World Vision is working to bring quality healthcare to children and families in need and to support those with disabilities.

Location: Ulanbaatar City, Mongolia

Mongolian Maant (Mongolian Community Care Project)

The economic collapse following the withdrawal of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s led to a rapid decline in Mongolia’s national infrastructure, including health facilities. One example was a psychiatric unit for children and young adults.

The Mongolian and New Zealand Ministries of Health, organised by World Vision, assessed the unit and decided to move the patients to a psychiatric hospital in Ulanbaatar City. Here they could receive better nutritional, medical and psychiatric care.

The Community Care for Intellectually Disabled Children Project trains hospital staff to rehabilitate these previously long-term institutionalised patients back into the community. Young adults learn independent living skills such as gardening, cooking, sewing and carpentry.

An important part of the project is to raise community awareness of disability and to help prepare local residents for the children’s re-integration into the community. There is currently a negative attitude towards intellectual disability in Mongolia.

It is hoped that eventually some children can eventually be reunited with their families and receive ongoing support from a variety of agencies, including World Vision.

The concept of community care is a new one in Mongolia and this is an exciting pilot project. It aims to educate health professionals on how community care for physically and intellectually challenged people can work in Mongolia.