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Will you help children win their fight to survive?

Four-year-old Pierre is momentarily comforted in the arms of his mother, Elene. They are at a referral hospital, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where severely undernourished children are admitted every day.

An incredibly worried Elene walked the 15km from their home to the hospital to get help for her malnourished son.

Elene has every reason to be worried. Pierre weighed just 7kg. An average 4-year-old boy should weigh around 16kg.

Pierre has severe acute malnutrition. Malnutrition has caused Pierre's legs to swell and he cannot eat. Elene says, “He was a happy boy, playing all the time. When I discovered that he wasn’t playing and he wasn’t eating anymore, I realised he was sick.”

Hunger is the largest single contributor to child mortality worldwide and is responsible for nearly half of deaths in children under five.

Malnutrition leaves millions of children with lifelong physical and mental impairments. It is tragic and unacceptable as there are proven low cost solutions that can end this crisis.

Our world has enough food for everyone – no child should die because of malnutrition. Yet millions are born into hunger and ultimately it’s why they die.

You can help. Around the world we're fighting to end malnutrition for children like Pierre.

Support from our regular givers can allow us to:

• Work with local healthcare workers to teach mothers how to properly breast feed their babies to provide them with essential nutrients they need to grow.
• Provide fortified meals with essential nutrients to boost young children’s development.
• Give mothers with severely malnourished families food vouchers and money in times of need to tackle malnutrition and sustain local economies.

You can help children like Pierre get the food they desperately need to save their lives.

Will you help today?

$58 can provide a supply of peanut paste to treat a dangerously malnourished child, and bring them back to health.

$87 can buy a carton of energy biscuit bars to feed a family who have no food.

You can help save children’s lives. Please — become a regular supporter today..

Kayembe’s story of survival

Kayembe is a beautiful little boy. He lives in a village with his Aunt Vicky in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But he has suffered more than any child should. His dad died of AIDS and not long ago his mother also started to get sick from the terrible disease.

His mother tried hard to keep Kayembe healthy, but as she got sicker, so did Kayembe. He lost weight and started showing signs of malnutrition.

Thankfully Kayembe’s aunt was there. She started caring for and looking after the family. But with four children of her own, it was a struggle. Her husband, a farmer, worked hard to earn an income to support the larger family, but there was still barely enough rice and foufou (a local staple food often made of cassava) to go around.

It simply wasn’t enough for Kayembe’s already malnourished body. He developed a fever and suffered from diarrhoea. A month went by and he wasn’t getting any better. And sadly, Kayembe’s mother passed away from AIDS.

With 21-month-old Kayembe still sick, his Aunt Vicky walked for 1½ hours to reach the hospital. Doctors diagnosed Kayembe with severe malnutrition, prescribing antibiotics for his fever and a nutritious peanut paste to help him gain weight.

Hunger is the largest single contributor to child mortality worldwide and is responsible for nearly half of deaths in children under five. Malnutrition leaves millions of children with lifelong physical and mental impairments. It is tragic and unacceptable as there are proven low cost solutions that can save lives.

Happily, Kayembe received some of this help, and with the antibiotics and nutritious peanut paste he started to get better. Two months after our teams met him, we heard that Kayembe was discharged from hospital, a happy and healthy little boy.

But there are other children around the world who aren’t so lucky. You can help more children access the care they need to fight malnutrition.

Support from our regular givers can allow us to:

• Work with local healthcare workers to teach mothers how to breastfeed their babies to provide them with essential nutrients they need to grow.
• Provide fortified meals with essential nutrients to boost young children’s development.
• Give mothers with severely malnourished families food vouchers and money in times of need to tackle malnutrition and sustain local economies.
• Equip health care centres with the lifesaving supplies they need to treat children, just like Kayembe.

Will you help today?

• $58 could provide a supply of peanut paste to treat a dangerously malnourished child, and bring them back to a healthy weight.
• $87 can buy a carton of energy biscuit bars to feed a family without enough food.

You can help save children’s lives. Please — become a regular supporter today.

Thousands of children have never seen clean water in their lives. You can change this.

This is 12-year-old Hasna. Hasna was forced to collect dirty water from a stream near her home after heavy rainfall.

As you can see, the water is putrid. Here in Australia we wouldn’t consider washing in it — let alone drinking it.

But for Hasna and her family, there was simply no other option. Every day by drinking such contaminated water they risked getting sick with severe diarrhoea, which can lead to death.

Save the Children is working around the world in communities like the Afar region of Ethiopia, where Hasna lives.

In dire situations we initially provide trucked water, with the view of finding a permanent and sustainable supply of safe water.

Our regular givers have helped us to work in communities where children are at the highest risk.

We provide water purification solutions, jerry cans for the fetching water and containers for safe water purification. We construct permanent concrete wells, build latrines in schools and promote better hygiene practices.

With thanks to supporters like you, Hasna now has clean, healthy and safe water to drink.

But there are thousands of other children around the world who are risking their lives every time they have a drink of water. They desperately need your help.

Will you help today?

$10 could buy 50 bottles of water purification solution, which is enough to make 5,000 litres of water safe to drink

$50 could buy enough materials to construct five household pit latrines, helping prevent the spread of disease

$100 could buy 30 jerry cans, enabling households to fetch water from wells and providing a container for safe water purification

You can help save children’s lives. Please — become a regular supporter today.