Health

From supporting immunisation programmes to training volunteers on strategies to combat malaria, Plan's health programmes help to save thousands of children's lives every year.

Focusing on child health, our community-level initiatives include immunisation, child nutrition and hygiene promotion. We give particular emphasis to the 5 main causes of death among children aged 0 to 5, including malaria, diarrhoea, acute respiratory diseases, malnutrition and measles.

In 2010 Plan has trained 150,007 professionals and volunteers in health work, benefiting 16,898 communities.

Maternal and reproductive health

Maternal health is another key area of our work, particularly pre- and postnatal care and birth attendance.

In the city of Surabaya, Plan is running a Child-Friendly community project to encourage mothers to access health care throughout their pregnancy and after the birth of their child. The project aims to increase the number of deliveries performed by health workers, reduce the number of underweight children and increase the rate of child immunisation. Breastfeeding for the first six months of life is the best way to ensure a baby’s healthy development and combat malnutrition. Due to a lack of support for working mothers and the difficulty of finding a suitable location to breastfeed, many mothers miss this opportunity to improve their babies’ health, so whit this project Plan took an important step by providing an accessible breastfeeding space.

We also implement reproductive health programmes in most of the countries that we work in, with the main focus on HIV.

• Learn about Plan's early childhood care and development work.
• Read about our work on sexual health, including HIV