02/10/09 - During Bill Gate's presentation at this year's Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Long Beach, California, he startled the audience.
Microsoft's founder opened a jar of mosquitoes into the hall to make a point — mosquitoes, though not the kind he released that day, carry malaria, and malaria kills. Every year the disease wipes out a million children living in poor, tropical countries where access to basic medical care and disease-prevention measures is scarce. Even where treatment is available, malaria survivors sometimes continue to suffer. Mothers can transfer health problems to offspring by giving birth to low-weight infants and children with severe anemia.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding work to develop an effective malaria vaccine with the goal of reducing malaria deaths by 2015. In Africa, where the disease kills 2,000 children a day, the Gates Foundation has funded initiatives to develop malaria prevention and treatment. At the most basic level, it is working to eliminate people's exposure to mosquitoes. The foundation funds local groups to distribute mosquito nets and spray inside homes. One country already benefiting from these efforts is Mozambique.
SOS Children's Villages in Mozambique Fighting Malaria & HIV/AIDS
Since 1987, SOS Children's Villages has also been working in Mozambique to save children and strengthen families affected by malaria, HIV/AIDS, and natural disasters. Founded by Austrian Hermann Gmeiner in 1949, SOS Children's Villages is the world's largest charity focused on providing loving homes for orphaned and abandoned children.
Four SOS Children's Villages lie in Mozambique. One is in Tete, where SOS operates a kindergarten, an SOS Hermann Gmeiner Primary and Secondary School, a small clinic, a farm, and a bakery. The others are in Maputo, Pemba, and Inhambane. Besides providing stable homes and loving mothers for orphaned children, SOS Children's Villages works directly with families and communities to empower them to effectively protect and care for their children. SOS does this by cooperating with local authorities and other service providers.
Emergency Relief in Mozambique
Over the years, SOS Children's Villages Mozambique has organized many emergency relief programs to help victims of famine, including undernourished children and their mothers, pregnant women, and the elderly. When tropical storms devastated Gaza and Maputo provinces in 2000, SOS Children's Village Maputo distributed medicines to local families and ensured a supply of drinking water.
Children such as five-year-old Molina have found a new home and a caring mother at the SOS Children's Village in Inhambane, lying along Mozambique’s southern coast. Molina's mother died when she was very young. She was left at home with her older brother while their father went out to fish, and often, to drink. Molina and her brother had to fend for themselves, which meant that as soon as she could walk, Molina had to fetch water for drinking and for use around the house. When Molina's brother contracted malaria and died, she was left on her own. Although social welfare staff in Inhambane Province were aware of her situation, before SOS Children's Village at Inhambane opened in 2008, they had nowhere to place her. Today she is cared for in a vibrant SOS Village that is home to 150 children.
At present SOS Children’s Villages in Mozambique runs two youth facilities, four kindergartens, four Hermann Gmeiner schools, one SOS Mother and staff training center, and seven SOS social centers, which offer counselling and basic medical care. If you would like to help a child like Molina secure a warm home and a bright future, consider sponsoring a child.
