Donate

... to ChildFund's Child and Mother Health Appeal

Giving birth is a joyous moment for most Australians. But in East Timor, where families live on desperately low incomes, one in 35 women die in childbirth and one in 10 children don't reach their fifth birthday.

Pregnant women in East Timor often die in childbirth due to a shortage of adequate healthcare skills in the community. As an expectant mother your only option is to have your baby at home on the dirt floor with your untrained husband as your sole support. Imagine how it feels to know that if anything goes wrong, help is too far away to save you or your baby. Imagine your devastated husband burying the tiny body of your newborn child who didn't survive the first day of her life.

Parents have no knowledge of how to identify, prevent and treat life-threatening childhood illnesses. Diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria are the leading causes of child death yet they are all preventable and easily treatable.

Thirty-one year-old Francisco sadly lost two of his four children to preventable causes. His daughter died soon after she was born in their home, and his son died of malaria. There was no medical assistance for either child.

"My first child died in the first hour she was born. If I had brought my wife into the health centre to give birth, perhaps my daughter wouldn't have died . . . Later my son died of malaria while I was away earning a living fishing. . . He should have been taken to the health centre. Now it is too late".

The Child and Mother Health Program is an urgent priority for deprived communities. With your help we can save the lives of mothers and their babies. Together we can assist some of the world's most vulnerable people at one of the most critical times in their lives.

Your donation can help provide:

training for parents on how to identify and prevent childhood diseases
training for mothers on life-saving nutrition for their children
mosquito nets for babies and mothers, to help prevent the biggest killer of children under the age of five - malaria
training for community health workers to assist the birthing process and for health staff on maternal and obstetric care

Please make a donation today to help save the lives of babies, toddlers and mothers in one of our closest neighbouring countries, East Timor.

To make a donation online using your credit or debit card, please click the button below. Or, you can download the ChildFund donation form to make your donation by mail, fax or phone.

Thank you

Your generous donation will be directed to our work in East Timor. If we exceed our appeal target, any extra funds will be directed to other ChildFund projects.