Street Girls Project in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Being born a girl in the intense poverty of Bangladesh is often a tragedy. Girl-children are seen as economic and social burdens. Thousands of girls are abandoned and many end up living on the streets.

Up to 250 street girls are being assisted on a regular basis through the Dhaka Project drop-in centre.

In a safe environment the girls are offered educational programs and skills training to help lift them out of poverty. The centre also promotes education and provides cooking and washing facilities.

Street Children in Yangon Myanmar (Burma)

Lan Paw Kale Street Children's Project is a drop-in centre and hostel, actively involved with Street Children to address their specific needs.

The average daily attendance is 60 per day, with more than 200 registered. Children are provided with:

• An environment of love, trust and acceptance.
• Medical services, nutritional health, and a place to play.
• Literacy classes, social skills and education.
• Contact with families, with staff support.

In 1998 a skills training component was added to the project. To date they have produced T-shirts, greeting cards, bracelets, etc and it has become a popular program amongst the children.

Fistula Hospital - Ethiopia

Through surgery the Fistula Hospital is providing hope to women by repairing childbirth injuries which have left them incontinent and humiliated. Fistulas result from obstructed labour when medical help is unavailable. In remote of areas Africa a hospital can be up to four days journey by foot. The hospital operates on over 1,000 patients a year.

The Fistula Hospital also trains 150 to 200 Ethiopian nurses and health workers each year and is a centre for studying fistula surgery for doctors through Africa and other parts of the world.

Safe Motherhood Project - Ethiopia

Traditional practices, such as female circumcision, which are harmful to women and children are still practiced and massaging the uterus. Many girls are married before they are 15 years of age.

These all contribute to a high rate of mortality amongst mothers and babies. Permanent disabilities also result, such as fistulas and infertility. About one thousand Ethiopian women develop fistula caused by obstructed labour every year. This results in continuously leaking urine, and sometimes faeces. Women become social outcasts and are usually abandoned by their husbands and families.

This new project requires:

• Community labour, construction materials, medical equipment.
• Delivery rooms require equipment, medicines and beds.
• Training for nurses and doctors.
• Establishment of drama groups to educate primary and high school children in areas of maternal healthcare and gender issues.

Kanzokea Dispensary in Makueni, Kenya

The dispensary serves a community of 6,0000 people and its focus is both preventative and curative.

Because of poverty, eating habits are very poor; children are under nourished and weak. Malaria, diarrhoea, intestinal worms and other water borne diseases are prevalent due to low accessibility to clean drinking water.

No ambulance is available. Sick patients travel two and a half hours on dirt roads to the nearest hospital.

The Kanzokea Dispensary aims are:

• To reduce the infant mortality rate
• Improve maternal child health care services
• Reduce the high birth rate through the introduction of Family Planning practices
• Provide pre natal care
• Immunization awareness
• Reduce the incidence of disease and improve health amongst 60000 people in the Kanzokea Community.

University Girls Scholarship - Bangladesh

In countries like Bangladesh, girls are seen as economic and social burdens. They receive less food, medical care, education and less freedom to develop.

How World Vision is helping…

Scholarships for degree courses are being awarded to female students from poor rural families who have the potential and desire for education. This rare opportunity to study and realise their dreams gives young women the opportunity, as professionals, to play vital roles in the development of their communities. At present approx. 75 girls are continuing their higher studies.

Papunya Aboriginal Community - Alice Springs NT

Did you know:
Indigenous Australians

• Have the highest rate of rheumatic fever in the world.
• Are likely to die 15-25 years earlier than non-indigenous Australians.
• Are the only group of people in the world, outside of famine and war zones, where life expectancy has not improved in the last 15 years.
• Have a higher unemployment rate than non-indigenous Australians.
• Have a higher infant mortality rate than non-indigenous Australians.

From simple infections, paralysis and rheumatic heart diseases can result, and are a significant cause of death in the community. The Skin Care Clinic at the school operates once a week - the aim of these clinics is to prevent such diseases from ever occurring.

Diabetes is also one of the most significant co-factors in cardiovascular and kidney diseases amongst indigenous Australians, Diabetes is both preventable and controllable through a healthy diet.

But healthy food is not always affordable or available, nor is access to refrigeration and clean water. World Vision's Preventative health Program is addressing these problems, and to ensure the projects long term sustainability, local indigenous people are being trained in health and nutrition.

This Papunya project aims to:

• Support the Heart Foundation in raising funds for the ongoing Nutrition and Diabetes project.
• Maintain promotion of Walkabout Productions, the sale of indigenous art to raise funds for Diabetes prevention.
• Maintain the Preventative Health Program; promote healthy eating, and education in nutrition and basic health care.

Bamboo Shoot Project, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The centre began in February 1993 in response to the social needs of children who were homeless and abandoned and struggling to survive. The focus is on reconciling children with their families or alternately, providing long term foster care. The centre also provides education, skills training, employment, sporting and craft and traditional dancing activities.

The centre's development is set against a backdrop of poverty, family separation, domestic violence, HIV infection, sexual exploitation, and hazardous child labour. Children represent the future fo Cambodia with more than 56% of the country's population under 19 years of age - "the hope of tomorrow the casualities fo today."