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 Return from India
Vitamin Angels’ President Howard Schiffer recently returned from a trip to India where he observed distributions conducted by our partners of vitamin A, anti-parasitic tablets and prenatal vitamins. Howard traveled across the country (see map) to provide you with a glimpse into the lives of our beneficiaries and into the work of our partners on the ground who make it all possible.
We hope you had a chance to read Howard’s Notes from the field, and check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for the latest updates. Our friend, Dr. Alan Greene had some wonderful insights to share and of course we have some amazing new photos from Matt Dayka, our thanks as always for his great work.
We still need your help to cover our program costs in India ($250,000) so we can ensure that each and every one of the 1,000,000 children in our sights receives the vitamin A they so critically need. Help us reach our goal. |
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 On to Guatemala!
Next week, our team sets off for Guatemala. This time, Howard and Matt will be accompanied by our Development Coordinator, Jessamyn Wead, as well as a wonderful group of individuals from from Univera, Inc., the driving force behind the public charity, Univera Serve First., which is dedicated to alleviating hunger among children and those most at need in the United States and throughout the world.
The group will be joining our partners, Faith in Practice, in the remote desert communities of Puerto de Golpe and San Augustin Acasaguastlan (see map). We have been working with Faith in Practice since 2007. The organization has been working in Guatemala for 18 years and is the second largest health care provider in Guatemala, serving over 17,000 beneficiaries per year. Faith in Practice sets up medical clinics staffed by local professionals and pharmacists, as well as volunteers who travel to Guatemala to donate their time, in order distribute children’s multivitamins and women’s prenatal/postnatal multivitamins. Howard and the group will be visiting some of these clinics to observe the vitamin distributions and meet some of our beneficiaries.
As always, we will be sending out Notes from the field with great new stories, photos and videos as well as regularly updating our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Please consider making a donation today. It is only through the support of our donors that we can continue to reach the women and children of Guatemala and others around the world with essential nutrients through Thrive to Five. |
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 Healthy children in Honduras
This month we received an update from Pat Havener, program director of Cristo Salva in Honduras. On Howard’s 2008 trip to Honduras he met Margarita, an expecting mother and one of the many women who received prenatal vitamins during the visit. With the oversight of our partners at Cristo Salva, Margarita continued receiving and taking the vitamins throughout her entire pregnancy and today she is the proud mother of a happy and healthy little boy.
Pat also commented that there have been notable improvements in the height (which now more closely matches their true age) and physical health of those children in the communities served which have consistently been reached with multivitamins through our partnership.
Learn more about the impact our project in Honduras is having on the children served. Read the article. |
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Help Vitamin Angels continue to reach children and mothers in the hardest to reach places around the world, and right here in the United States. Make a donation today!
To see more of our projects in countries around the world, learn about our partners and how many children we are reaching, check out our programs pages:
Operation 20/20 | Thrive to Five |
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 Reaching the Unreachable Day – June 18, 2010
Retailers mark your calendars. On June 18, 2010 your store can help reduce child mortality and improve the lives of children around the globe. Vitamin Angels, in partnership with New Hope Natural Media, invites you to be a part of Reaching the Unreachable Day. Join hundreds of natural products retailers nationwide in giving a percentage of sales to support Vitamin Angels’ mission. Learn more
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 Dear Friends,
In 2003 when we first contacted Johnson & Johnson about being the founding sponsor for our India 'Vitamin A Blindness Prevention Campaign,' they let us know that part of their support could go toward 'capacity building.' At the time, the organization was still very much in development and I, along with a few gracious helpers, were the 'capacity.'
Vitamin Angels has come a long way. Today, we know that 'capacity building' means creating the internal and external systems within Vitamin Angels to allow us to reach the maximum amount of children possible. The past seven years have seen Vitamin Angels grow from reaching 1 million children annually to reaching 20 million children this year. The logistics, implementation partners in each country, technical guidelines, staffing within Vitamin Angels, and internal policies and procedures, have allowed us to dramatically grow our organization. Country projects have grown significantly. With the right support, Vitamin Angels is ready to reach 40 million children in our own country and around the world in 2011. Amazing!
With all of the children Vitamin Angels is now reaching, it is important to remember that there is a counterintuitive relationship between child mortality and population density that is not always obvious. This is to say that when you start saving children’s lives, population rates actually decline. It makes sense, when women know they don’t have to have 10 babies to have 4 survive, they begin having less babies.
This chart covers a span of 45 years in countries from Central and South America to Africa to South Asia. What the chart doesn’t show is that when population rates go down, the nutritional status of families improves, economic well-being increases, and education levels rise. It is truly the beginning of breaking the cycle of poverty.
Upwards!
 Howard Schiffer, President
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"Nepal malnutrition affecting half of under-fives"
BBC News reported that a new report from the Nepalese government has revealed that nearly half of Nepal’s under-five children are suffering from malnutrition. In recent years, programs for vitamin A and iodized salt have been implemented to combat micronutrient deficiencies, but efforts need to be scaled up in order to reduce mortality and poor development. Health experts say that extra attention should be given to Nepalese women before and during pregnancy, and in the infants first two years of life.
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Obama’s Global Health Initiative to include investments in maternal and child health
In May 2009, President Obama announced his Global Health Initiative. Not surprisingly, the GHI includes strategies to fight specific infectious diseases, an issue that has been prioritized in recent years. Proponents, however, are encouraged to also see that the plan includes investments in other areas, including maternal and child health.
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Natural Products Expo West
The Vitamin Angels development team attended the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA last weekend. We had the pleasure of seeing and meeting with so many of our wonderful partners, and sharing our message with new and interested individuals, retailers, manufacturers and more.
Thanks to everyone who attended Friday’s reception hosted by the Nutrition Business Journal, we hope to see you all at the NBJ Summit July 20-23. And our many thanks to the show organizers, New Hope Natural Media, for your support.
For those of you we met, and anyone we might have missed, please know we are here for you with additional support, materials, and ideas. Please contact us to get involved today! |
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