Save The Child

What’s the Campaign Called?
Save the Children’s latest push is part of the No Child Born to Die campaign and is focussed on the half a billion children who will be mentally and physically impaired over the next 15 years as a result of malnutrition. In a new report, A Life Free from Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition, the charity say that future global progress on child mortality is at serious risk from rising food prices.

What’s the point?
The world has made dramatic progress in reducing child deaths – down from 12 m to 7.6 million – and recent investment in vaccines and health workers could accelerate that progress and save millions more children’s lives. But this crucial momentum will stall if world leaders fail to tackle malnutrition, because – although it doesn’t appear on children’s death certificates – it’s the underlying cause of a third of all child deaths: a hidden killer. The good news is we know how to save these lives. The solutions are clear, proven and cheap. Basic things, like making sure mums breastfeed properly and fortifying children’s foods with basic vitamins and minerals – like we do routinely in the UK – will protect children from malnutrition and save lives.
Why should we care?
We know parents are struggling to feed their children now more than ever. Our new research – following a year of rocketing food prices in 2011 – shows that nearly half of parents have been forced to cut down on the food they feed their children. Nearly 80% said rising food prices were their most pressing concern, and nearly a third said their children didn’t have enough to eat. Imagine being that parent, waking up not knowing if you can feed your children that day. And even if you can afford some food, knowing that it’s probably not nutritious enough to help your children’s bodies and brains grow properly. Malnutrition is a death sentence. Every hour of every day, 300 children die because they aren’t eating enough – or they’re not eating the right nutritious food – so their bodies are starved of essential nutrients, proteins and fats. That’s 2.6 million children’s lives every year. But it’s a life sentence for millions more – simply because they’re not getting the basic nutrition we take for granted in the UK. 170 million children around the world today are malnourished, which means their brains and bodies aren’t developing properly. This leads to a condition called stunting, which has devastating effects. Stunted children are physically shorter, have lower IQs, are more likely to drop out of school and are less likely to be able to get a good job. And if they are malnourished before the age of two, the damage is irreversible.
Who else cares?
The support on the campaign has already been wide reaching and is being publicly supported by several well known faces including celebrity chef,Tom Kitchin and food critic Jay Rayner, as well as Myleene Klass, supermodel Erin O’Connor and Natasha Kaplinsky.
Who are you targeting?
The need for political action is urgent. While the world focuses on the financial crisis, Save the Children is warning that malnutrition will blight the lives of nearly half a billion children over the next 15 years – a crisis that could cost the global economy hundreds of billions of pounds – unless world leaders act now to tackle hunger. Malnutrition has not received the same high-profile campaigning and investment as other causes of child mortality like HIV/Aids or malaria. This has meant that while the child mortality rate from malaria has been cut by a third since 2000, child malnutrition rates in Africa have decreased by less than 0.3 per cent. We want to stop children dying because of malnutrition. That’s why we’re asking David Cameron to help lead the biggest push in history.
What would a better world look like?
We can stop malnutrition in its tracks and save millions of children’s lives. We know it’s possible. Huge strides have been made to reduce deaths from HIV/AIDS and malaria, because the political will was there. Last year Britain showed powerful leadership by galvanising the world to act on vaccines.
What can we do?
Save the Children is asking people up and down the country to add their voices to the call for a global hunger summit by naming their own day when they will take action.

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