We believe healthy mothers are one of the keys to healthy children.

Moms pass nutrients on from herself to her baby in the womb as well as during the breastfeeding period. March 8 is International Women’s Day and Vitamin Angels is thrilled to help celebrate women around the world today.

IWD has an interesting history. The United States was the first to celebrate a Women’s Day. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay, and voting rights. The first National Women’s Day was observed on February 28, 1909 and in 1910, a Swiss woman named Clara Zetkin proposed an International Women’s Day.

By 1911, four countries were honoring the new holiday and it's reach has only grown since then: “IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.” – International Women’s Day site.

What will you do to celebrate women today?

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland took place January 25-29, 2012. Nutrition was front and center in a venue where leading economic innovators, global decision makers, country leaders and representatives of some of the world’s most influential organizations gathered. We feature two highlights—(1) A Main Stage Session, and (2) an article by Klaus Kramer.

(1) The Main Stage Session, called “Raising Healthy Children,” was the first session in WEF’s history on children’s health. The World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran, who led the panel of experts, pointed out that we now carry ‘the burden of knowledge’ in that we know about the irreversible damage done to children’s development if they are not given a chance of a healthy start in life, and we also know which interventions are necessary to prevent this. Today we know that without specific interventions, children lose a chance at a healthy life and this is not only an issue of compassion, but also one for finance ministers and presidents and prime ministers.

View the webcast here.

(2) During the WEC, Klaus Kraemer, Director of Sight and Life, released an article in the Diplomatic Courier titled “Building New Models to Nourish 7 billion.” Dr. Kraemer highlights the need for micronutrients and the importance of beginning early, (during the 1,000 day window of opportunity from conception until a child is 2 years old), to provide proper nutrition and the right micronutrients.

“For a stronger, healthier future, we must start with a solid foundation: one that enables us to grow, to learn, to contribute to our communities, develop our nations and thrive. We know that in order to build a better future, each one of us seven billion (and counting) deserves these opportunities. To achieve this, we must overcome many health and development challenges; so where to begin? We must focus on solutions that maximize limited resources through innovation, partnerships, and smart investments. This solid foundation can be built with the smallest of building blocks—the micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals needed to nourish our children and families. As a global community, we have a great opportunity to shape nutrition-centered development solutions to give children a healthy start at life and in turn, nourish future generations of innovators.

“We all have a role to play in shaping the opportunities available to integrate nutrition-centered interventions across all sectors. We can build new transformative approaches into existing systems that support the goal of better nutrition for all people globally. Building a strong future rests on our ability to lay the building blocks for a strong human foundation. In a world of seven billion people where resources are stretched and financial resources limited, nutrition is one of the smartest investments we can make to build a strong future. Proper nutrition—micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals—form the essential building blocks for our potential as humans.”

Full article here.

Ada Lauren

Manager of Technical Services, Vitamin Angels

We're happy to share this guest blog from one of our new implementation partners in Afghanistan, AmeriCares.

It's not easy to be a child in Afghanistan: Approximately 50 percent of children suffer from ill health and poor growth due to malnutrition. One in five Afghan children does not reach the age of five, and many more are at risk for disease and poor development due to malnutrition. Afghanistan has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. (The World Health Organization ranks Afghanistan as "severe" in its prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in children under five.)

But soon, thanks to AmeriCares and Vitamin Angels, Afshar Hospital, on the outskirts of Kabul, will have a way to help vitamin A deficient Afghan children. Afshar doctors will be distributing high-potency vitamin A capsules formulated for pediatric patients. AmeriCares, a U.S.-based disaster relief and humanitarian aid nonprofit organization, has been active in Afghanistan since 1988 and has delivered medicines and medical supplies specifically to Afshar Hospital since 2011. AmeriCares requested the vitamin A capsules from Vitamin Angels, and Vitamin Angels responded with a generous donation of 20,000 capsules. Children will receive the vitamin treatment from Afshar Hospital free of charge.

In 2009, Afshar Hospital was founded by a U.S. non-profit organization, American Medical Overseas Relief (AMOR), in order to provide health care to a population of approximately 40,000 people who previously had little or no access to medical services. The hospital offers primary care with a particular focus on maternal health and pediatrics. Parents bring children to Afshar Hospital for immunizations, antibiotics, and other essential services and treatments. At the same time, Afshar physicians and nurses visit nearby orphanages and clinics to provide services to some of the most vulnerable populations.

Vitamin Angels is happy to unite with AmeriCares to reduce vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition in Afghan children.

© David Snyder/AmeriCares

© David Snyder/AmeriCares

Check out these new photos from Haiti Foundation of Hope that made our day. Together we are reaching 1,302 pregnant and lactating women with multivitamins and 5,000 infants and children with vitamin A through our Thrive to Five and Operation 20/20 programs.

Go here for additional photos from Haiti Foundation of Hope; 

We are thrilled to share this inspiring video from Fonkoze, one of our field partners in Haiti. The video shows a mother named Antonia receiving health information and vitamin A from Vitamin Angels for her new baby (2 minutes, 12 seconds in). With the help of Fonkoze, we are reaching 2,237 mothers like Antonia with multivitamins and 25,497 children through Thrive to Five. Together we are also reaching 114,500 children in Haiti with vitamin A through Operation 20/20.

Produced by Good Eye Video.

In a recent newsletter, Give Children A Choice, our field partner in Laos, shares an inspiring update. Together, we are working to connect children in need with essential nutrients in Laos where 40% of children suffer from chronic malnutrition. 

“We were blessed with a generous donation from Santa Barbara-based Vitamin Angels to distribute one year’s worth of daily multiple vitamins to 24,000 preschool children.  We distributed three quarters of the vitamins.  The impact is astounding.  The vitamins have “woken up” our preschoolers from being tired and listless to being active and attentive in school.”

Photos courtesy Give Children a Choice.

Last February Vitamin Angels’ President, Howard Schiffer, headed to Laos with our favorite photographer, Matt Dayka, and some friends from Sanofi-Aventis to meet with Give Children a Choice and the children we reach in the Xieng Khouang Province. Read more about the trip>>

Learn more about our international multivitamin campaign Thrive to Five>>

The Vitamin Angels Programs team recently went to Vietnam for ten days to monitor Vietnam’s national vitamin A campaigns with our field partner, the Vietnamese National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Read what Eva Haase, Vitamin Angels Program Coordinator, said about the trip:

As the Program Coordinator, I am responsible for key aspects of grantee relationship maintenance and for technical support and educational materials for field use. Understanding how to create effective, quality support materials means that I have the opportunity to engage with our more than 70 field partners to improve the quality of information used in health services, in particular giving vitamin A to children.  So it goes without saying that a monitoring visit to Vietnam’s national vitamin A campaigns with our field partner, the Vietnamese National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), was a welcomed opportunity and a great way to celebrate my upcoming one-year anniversary with Vitamin Angels. Since 2008, Vitamin Angels has been working to provide vitamin A to the children and women of Vietnam’s 63 tinh (provinces), this year reaching 3.1 million children and 700,000 lactating mothers. Outside of NIN, Vitamin Angels is the only source of high-dose vitamin A for Vietnam’s program. Together, NIN and Vitamin Angels are able to reach infants and young children targeted by the national vitamin A campaigns held annually on the first and second days of June and December at Commune Health Centers throughout the country. 

Vitamin A needs are based primarily on birth records and ongoing health services, and are reported from the smallest administrative units—the hamlets and communes—to the larger ones, the districts, provinces, and regions, and finally to NIN. This is an one example of the “bottom up” approach adopted to advance availability, access and use of micronutrients, especially vitamin A, among at-risk populations in need. At the same time, NIN along with the provinces and districts collaborate to create annual health service plans, training materials, and information and education communications. Families of infants and young children are alerted to the bi-annual vitamin A campaigns through public service announcements broadcasted on television, over the radio and on loudspeakers that, through at least one channel or another, reach every hamlet in Vietnam. 

To increase household awareness of the campaigns, a network of 110,000 trained Volunteer Nutrition Coordinators, fluent in local languages and Vietnamese and who live and volunteer in the hamlets they serve, hand deliver written invitations to every household under their care. Imagine, firsthand touching the households of nearly 7 million children with a handwritten invitation to improve child health and to reduce child mortality by at least 24%! Families turn in their invitations when they arrive to receive vitamin A for their young children and the names are collected and verified against the commune’s master list. If a child does not appear for vitamin A supplementation, the Volunteers are deployed to deliver the health service to the child at home.  This means that NIN can confidently report reaching the same children with vitamin A distribution-after-distribution, year-after-year.  As a result of these national and household-level efforts, vitamin A supplementation rates for children were greater than 90% in the districts we visited. Deworming medicine, which has a mutually beneficial relationship when coupled with the vitamin A, was also given to all eligible children during the vitamin A campaign. Overall, we confirmed that the Vitamin Angels’ vitamin A is being managed skillfully to reach our intended beneficiaries, children 6-59 months, with essential micronutrients. But, I am inclined to simply chalk it up to being one more reason to love what I do. 

Special thanks to The $10 Club for their generous donation to procure 100,000 IU vitamin A capsules for this project and to all of our donors who are making this projects and others around the world possible.

Learn more about our international vitamin A campaign Operation 20/20>>