Health
For many children in the developing world, the chances of a healthy life are uncertain.
One in five will die of a preventable illness before the age of five.
Plan works to ensure that children survive and grow up healthy. Our initiatives start before a child is born and continue through to adulthood.They cover:
- Safe motherhood and child survival - helping mothers to deliver healthy babies who have the best start in life, for example by having access to trained midwives, post-natal care and immunisations.
- Early childhood care and development - helping parents to care for their children in the early years, with extra nutrition or training in treating potentially fatal diseases like diarrhoea.
- Reproductive health and HIV/AIDS - enabling communities, especially young people to protect their sexual health, preventing unwanted pregnancy and infection. We also run an extensive programme to support communities coping with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
CASE STUDY:
An innovative health project in Senegal is using a traditional game to help reduce the maternal and infant mortality rate.
Plan’s health projects cover a broad range of areas.
Some of our methods for improving a community’s health standards are tried and tested – for example, projects to immunise children against disease, train medical staff or build a health centre.
Other methods are more innovative – like our support for a special game invented in Senegal to raise awareness of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth among expectant mothers.
Wure, Were, Werle (which means ‘play, be healthy and make your relatives healthy’ in Wolof, one of the main languages of Senegal) is based on a traditional game common in rural areas of the country, played with a board, cards and counters.
Designed by a research specialist at the Social Pediatrics Institute of Khombole, the game shows expectant mothers how to recognise potential problems related to pregnancy and labour and how to respond to them effectively.
In rural Senegal, pregnancy and delivery are anxious times for expectant mothers because of high maternal and infant mortality rates. Traditional beliefs relate ill-health to mystical forces, and many women go to traditional healers rather than conventional doctors when complications in pregnancy arise.
The game explains the medical causes of these complications and helps promote safer, more conventional forms of medical treatment among Senegalese women.
‘When women understand the reasons behind certain health conditions, they are more likely to seek professional help,’ explains the specialist.
In partnership with other humanitarian organisations, Plan developed the game which was tested in 16 villages throughout rural Senegal. The tests showed very positive results. For example, after playing the game only a couple of times, women’s knowledge of the risks associated with pregnancy increased from 3.2% to 40%.
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