ICROSS PROJECTS 2011-2012 Making a difference in Africa

ICROSS PROJECTS 2011-2012 Making a difference in Africa
more on
www.icrossinternational.org
www.icrosskenya.org
http://icrossprojects.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/ICROSSprojects

The United Nations, has set a series of targets to end world poverty and hunger. The gap between the rich and poor causes over 50,000 children to die from preventable diseases cause by poverty everyday.

These millennium goals are the gold standard we are all aiming for. for more facts about Global Poverty and the reasons why ICROSS focuses on these areas, please see here.

1.WOMEN

92% of the women who die in pregnancy and childbirth, live in the poor world. The life expectancy of rural women in sub-Saharan Africa is 40% less than in Western Europe. The challenges are enormous. ICROSS has a number of long-range programs to improve the health and well being of women.

a) Maternal Health Care;
We have been developing long-term maternal health programmes since 1980. Together with institutions around the world, we have developed training programmes for mothers in their local language through their traditional belief systems. As part of strengthening women’s health, we have developed over 200 women’s groups and set up training systems within local communities led by the mothers, grandmothers and traditional birth attendants
b) Maternity Units
Through our network of clinics and health facilities, supporting pastoralist communities, we are going to build maternity units across the rift valley. This will allow us to protect women. For more information, please click here.
c) Safe Motherhood
d) Reproductive Health/Family Planning
With over a billion people living in the Sub-Sahara, many living in extreme poverty, family planning is critical to break the poverty trap. ICROSS provides choice, contraception, family planning alternatives and culturally appropriate reproductive health care.
e) Nutrition
In 2011, over 40% of young Maasai mothers are anemic. ICROSS health programmes are working with hundreds of villages ensuring that young mothers receive proper nutrition monitoring and home support [LINK]

2. CHILDREN
The poorest children on earth live in rural Sub-Sahara. Over 80% of starvation and ¾ of preventable deaths occur in this region. In many areas, 1 in 5 children die before their 5th birthday. The suffering facing these children can be stopped. The gap between a child born in rural Africa and Western Europe has never been bigger. ICROSS has been developing effective ways of improving child health for over three decades [ICROSS research page]
a) Primary Health Care
All ICROSS clinics provide comprehensive primary care to children in the homes and schools. This includes immunizing against the main six killer diseases; Tuberculosis, diphtheria, Whooping cough, polio, meningitis and tetanus, monitoring the growth of infants, nutritional support to malnourished children. For 16 years, ICROSS has pioneered innovations, finding new ways to improve drinking water for children and reduce diarrhea infections [LINK to RCSI SODIS research]. We are developing new ways to prevent blindness from Trachoma. Our child survival programme has reached over 200,000 children since it began in 1984.

3. HIV/AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA
Most of the worlds HIV victims live in Africa. The vast majority of all AIDS death occurs in the Sub-Sahara. Over 14 million children have been orphaned by AIDS; 2 million in Kenya alone. The AIDS crisis in Africa continues to be devastating [LINK]. Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, ICROSS has been proactive in developing culturally sensitive interventions and awareness programmes. Since our early work identifying the local needs [LINK], we have been developing long-range solutions to complex issues of sexual behavior.
a) Prevention and Health Promotion encouraging Safe Sex. Over 20 years, ICROSS has implemented care of HIV/AIDS patients in their own homes across many districts in Kenya (each of these districts is larger than a European country) [LINK]. We have provided home-based care to over 4000 victims of AIDS. [LINK]

b) AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children
For two decades, ICROSS has worked with local communities. We help children remain in their own tribal communities keeping them in their own social structure. We believe that orphaned children need to be part of the community and not institutionalized. We have developed culturally sensitive approaches to responding to individual needs where the children are people and not statistics. We provide practical help, education and support local community initiatives.
c) TB
ICROSS has been working with the ministry of health in many districts, strengthening the local resources and ability to respond to the increasing threat of drug resistant tuberculosis.
d) Malaria

ICROSS has a dynamic Malaria prevention project
download our latest report.
www.icrossinternational.org
www.icrosskenya.org
http://icrossprojects.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/ICROSSprojects

http://www.afro.who.int/en/clusters-a-programmes/dpc/malaria/features/2287-10-facts-on-malaria-in-africa.html