Ending baby deaths in Timor-Leste

Local solutions to local problems

With the support of donors to our End Baby Deaths in Timor-Leste Appeal, and the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP), ChildFund Timor-Leste has been training Village Health Volunteers from small communities who receive basic healthcare training and lessons on how to keep children healthy.

I was lucky enough to see a team of these Village Health Volunteers, a young man and woman, lead an information session about the importance of breastfeeding and nutrition. When I spoke to the man after the session he said he was inspired by a desire to help his community in any way possible.

His audience was just as enthusiastic. They peppered him with questions, ones they would no doubt follow up with the Village Health Volunteers in the months and years to come.

They also eagerly participated in a hands-on baby-food preparation class using locally-sourced foods that would help give their children a healthy, balanced diet. Before eating together, the mothers lined up with their children as the Village Health Volunteers helped them wash their hands with soap and explained how important this simple action is in preventing the diseases that cause the majority of child deaths.

Basic solutions that will save lives

To an Australian audience, this information may seem very basic. But small things make a huge difference, and are vital to the survival of children.

Washing hands, cooking healthy meals, and breastfeeding may not seem groundbreaking, but they can save many lives.

Newborns who are breastfed by healthy mothers receive all the nutrients they need as well protection from infectious and chronic diseases. If breastfeeding were scaled up to near universal levels, about 820,000 child lives would be saved every year, according to the World Health Organization.

Nutrition plays a role in almost half of all deaths of child under the age of five. Young children who eat healthy diets have a better chance of fighting disease and growing to their full potential.

Unsafe water supply is responsible for 88 percent of cases of diarrhoeal disease, which kills an estimated 1.6 million children under five each year. Clean water and good hygiene can play a critical role in preventing child deaths.

Thanks to ChildFund supporters, mothers in Timor-Leste will now be armed with this information and practical solutions to keep their children safe. When their children get sick, or they have any questions, they can speak to a local Village Health Volunteer, who can help them find solutions.

In the villages I visited, these solutions will help save lives.