Millennium Kid - every one

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Millennium Kid: Fighting to Save Children's Lives was adapted from Save the Children's report: Lives on the Line: An Age
Millennium Kid: Fighting to Save Children’s Lives was adapted from Save the Children’s report: Lives on the Line: An Agenda to end preventable child deaths. This comic was written and designed by Dan Archer at Graphic Voices. www.graphicvoices.com We are indebted to Save the Children colleagues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone for their input. Published by Save the Children St Vincent House 30 Orange Street London WC2H 7HH UK www.savethechildren.net www.everyone.org First published 2013 Copyright © Save the Children Association 2013 Published by Save the Children Association, a non-profit Swiss Association formed with unlimited duration under Articles 60-79 of the Swiss Civil Code. This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee or prior permission for teaching purposes, but not for resale. For copying in any other circumstances, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher, and a fee may be payable.

The United Nations Headquarters in New York, of course!

October 2013

Where...

Don’t worry,you’re home.

We created you here!

Y-you created me? What am I?

Where am I? Where’s home?

ZAP!

UN HQ, New York. 2000. …And that is why we need to set a deadline for cutting the number of young children dying before their fifth birthday.

History will judge us on our ability to make real change on this issue.

To help us achieve this goal, we have created a top secret special project to be our eyes and ears on the ground…

Presenting...

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The millennium kid!

His mission on this journey is to monitor the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)... ...a set of promises made by every country to cut the number of mothers and children dying by 2015.

I’m Inputting his main target countries as: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone. He’ll find out which are making the most progress, whether they can keep that going into the future.

ZAP! Hopefully that jogged your memory. Now... Millennium kid - status report!

We have halved the number of children dying each year from disease and poverty:

For the first time in history, we have a real chance to end preventable child deaths within a generation!

In 1960, almost a third of all children in Africa didn’t make it to adulthood - now it’s less than 10%. Several regions have more than halved their number of deaths among children under-five since 1990*.

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But there are still four key missions to complete before we can do that:

Mission 1: Protect New Born Babies.

Mission 2: Healthcare for Every Child.

Making sure babies survive the dangerous first days and weeks of life, when they’re at most risk of dying.

Making sure all children get the same level of medical attention by providing more health workers.

Mission 3: End Child Exclusion. Make sure that medical attention gets to the places that need it the most, like the remote countryside or city slums.

Mission 4: End Malnutrition. Making sure babies and children can get the food and nutrition they need.

To do that, we’re going to be sending MK on a journey around the world to collect data for each mission and show us what we need to do to meet the UN millennium goal by 2015.

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But you don’t have to follow him every step of the way. Use this map as a guide for which page to go to find out about each country.

Sierra Leone. Mission 1: Protect New Borns It’s too early. She’s a month premature.

He’s so small, we need to get him to a proper hospital.

The most dangerous day for newborn babies is the day they are born.

She has to have it now.

Her water broke after she fell over yesterday, that’s why she came in.

We don’t have the resources.

We’ll just have to use the equipment we have.

Two more million babies live past their first day but then die within a month.

Nooooooooo

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Each year, a million babies are born and die on the same say.

Of all the children under 5 who die each year, almost half are under a month old. For most, their deaths could have been prevented.

We’ve lost him.

The main causes of these young babies dying are: 1) being born too soon

2) problems as they are being born (like not getting enough oxygen),

When a baby is going to be born early, giving special medicine to the mother before they are born gives them a much better chance of surviving.

Remember these points for when a baby is born:

Use a clean blade and surface during any operations

Giving them breast milk makes them much stronger and putting new babies next to their mother’s skin keeps them warm.

Make sure the baby is breathing properly. Put the baby next to the mother’s skin as soon as they’re born.

Keep the baby dry and warm right after they are born

Start breast feeding right away

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and 3) getting infections soon after they are born.

We can easily stop these babies dying! Let’s see how, using my alternate reality vision:

Having people to look after the mothers before and after they give birth is very important for avoiding any medical problems.

For the first month of their lives, we have to pay special attention to babies and use antiseptic cream so that they don’t get any infections. And if young babies do get infections, their families or doctors must be able to decide what is wrong and give the right medicines straight away.

Which takes us to the next mission in Nigeria.

Nigeria. Mission 2: Healthcare for Every Child (#1) Medicines, vaccines and health equipment are also very important for young babies.

But they are expensive and hard to bring to far off places where mothers and their babies need them the most.

But if we changed that so all children got their injections, we could save over six million lives over the next five years.

For example, in 2012, just under half of the children in Nigeria or Chad got their basic injections.

For these injections you need to go to the city, they have more there.

But to make that happen, we need to follow these steps:

By giving four vaccines to all children within the first month of their lives could save more than 1 million babies each year.

In countries with a big gap between the rich and poor, the poorest children are more than three times less likely to be vaccinated against dangerous diseases than the richest children.

The price for these for these medicines must come down so that countries can afford to get them to children who miss out on health care.

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Medicines need to be free so that poor people aren’t left out or spend all their money paying for their sick children.

We need to make sure all communitiesk know when medicines arrive, and how to get them.

But be careful! Some medicines and shots that haven’t been approved or are out of date can hurt and even kill people.

We need to have more than one company who makes the medicine, so that there is competition and the price is low.

These children come from the poorest families, live in remote areas, or are members of groups that live separately from the rest of society.

Action Item: Write to the companies in your country who make the medicines and make them stick to these rules and follow the regulations!

Kenya: Mission 3: End Child Exclusion (#1) Interesting. The Millenium Kid needs us to keep working in the same way that children and their mothers need health workers to look after them.

Research by Save the Children has shown that children are five times more likely to reach their fifth birthday when they’re in a country that has enough doctors, nurses and midwives.

Yet 1 billion people will never see a health worker in their lives.

Remember, that’s one in seven people on planet earth!

To make this right, we need almost four million doctors, nurses, and other medical workers to help make sure that all communities get the medicines they need.

More health workers are especially needed in far-off areas away from cities and in slums.

Not being able to get even basic treatment means that a lot of children are dying from diseases that are very easy to prevent or cure.

That’s the same number as the entire population of Costa Rica!

Special “Frontline” health workers take medicines and treatments to the hardest to reach areas, often traveling on foot or by bicycle with just a backpack of supplies. Working in these hard to reach communities, frontline health workers are often the only way millions of people living in these areas get any medical help.

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They play a key role in fighting against serious childhood illnesses such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and infections in very young babies.

Wait! We’re getting a surge in energy from him on the timeline. It’s tracking to Ethiopia!

Ethiopia. Mission 3: End Child Exclusion (#2) Ethiopia has doubled the number of young children who have got their vaccines, been treated for pneumonia or given Vitamin A - which stops blindness and makes their bodies stronger.

Ethiopia has a new program that has trained 40,000 of these new frontline health workers since 2003. The impact has been huge!

They need regular training and support from their managers, and a safe, clean place to work.

Governments should address the health worker challenge in three ways: First, we need to take better care of the health workers we’ve already got.

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We need to make sure there are advantages for them to go to work in the countryside.

Health workers need to be based where children are dying. Right now they work mainly in capital cities and other big towns,

where they can get higher-paid jobs and have a good quality of life.

They should have the equipment they need and be paid a good wage for the work they do.

…But we need to change that so they can reach children living in more remote areas.

Healthy children do better in school too!

Meanwhile, at the UN... His power - it starts running low at this point.

That’s why we’re running low on health workers.

Can’t you see? He’s following how a child grows up. Once newborn babies are taken care of, the next most important thing is…

Yes? Oh sorry. FOOD!

Bangladesh. Mission 4:

End Malnutrition (#1) Malnutrition - not eating enough of the right food - is a cause of nearly half of all deaths among children under the age of five. That’s over three million children each year around the world.

Making sure young children eat the right food is one of the most important ways of making sure they survive to see their fifth birthday.

Girls who eat enough of the right food become healthy women, have healthier children and more chance of a healthy family.

Children who eat well are better at learning in school, fighting off diseases and growing up to be happy and successful adults.

There are different types of malnutrition, including wasting (when you don’t weigh enough for your height),

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not having enough essential vitamins in your body*,

Giving children the right food is one of the keys to ending preventable child deaths.

or stunting (when you’re too short for your age).

Stunting is clear sign that a child has not eaten the right food for a long time. * which is called micronutrient deficiency

It usually means that a child will not be able to learn or develop as fast as other normal children of the same age.

Bangladesh. Mission 3: End Child Exclusion (#3) Some of the main reasons some children die and others do not are: How much money the parents of that child have, if they went to school, where they live like here in the city...

For example, in Bangladesh a woman who is rich is five times more likely to have a skilled nurse helping her when she gives birth…

A woman living in a city in Bangladesh is two times more likely to have a skilled nurse... ...than a woman in the countryside.

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…or in the slums or countryside, whether they are a girl or a boy, what religion or group they belong to in society, and how old they are.

….compared to a woman from a poorer family.

India. Mission 4: End Malnutrition (#2) The most important time for a child to get the nutrition they need is in the first 1000 days of their life...

...from when they’re Eating the right food in the first conceived in their two years can stop children from mother’s womb until their suffering life-long damage: second birthday. This helps them to grow quickly and develo their brains - plus that they are strong enough to fight off infections.

Stunting can start even before the baby is born if the mother doesn’t eat enough or the right type of food, or gets an infection, which can mean the baby doesn’t grow as much as it should.

Babies and children under two years old who don’t get the right food will develop permanent problems that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

For example, globally almost one million babies every year die every year from not getting enough of their mother’s breast milk. Research shows that children without proper nutrition growing up earn almost a quarter as adults less than children who get the nutrition they need. When lots of children don’t eat the right things, it can hit the economy of an entire country!

The following solutions have been proved to make a huge difference in saving children’s lives during the first 1000 days:

Continued breastfeeding AND solid foods at the same time

Access to a safe, clean water supply for both drinking and washing.

Exclusive Breastfeeding

Extra vitamins and minerals: Vitamin A, Iron and Zinc to treat diarrhea

Giving mothers in communities ways of talking to each other so they can share stories and support each other Having people look out for young mothers who don’t know what to do

Giving classes for new mothers on what is best for young babies. Giving people the chance to grow the right food.

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His power levels are fluctuating wildly! What’s brought this on? It’s Pakistan - the signal is moving back and forth from strong to weak

Pakistan: Mission 2: Healthcare for Every Child (#2) But there are still a lot of children dying in Pakistan - and almost half of all the children who die before they are 5 years old are newborns. Only a third of children receive treatment And a huge number of children are for diarrhea or are now getting basic vaccines - the breastfed. government recently introduced a vaccine against pneumonia.

The number of children under 5 dying in Pakistan has dropped by a quarter in the last 10 years…

To change this situation, Pakistan needs more health workers, has to make sure children are getting the nutrition they need, and providing better healthcare for young babies.

Pakistan needs many more doctors, nurses and medical workers to stop children dying from common illnesses when they are young by giving them basic vaccines.

Governments have to be accountable to the public, and be able to explain

We need governments to look out for the needs of mothers and children, And we need to make sure the public have a way to make their voice heard.

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This means making the government’s budgets and policies clear and easy to understand!

exactly what they’re doing to save children’s lives.

Afghanistan: Mission 2: Healthcare for Every Child (#3) Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a baby, child or mother.

One in ten children here dies before celebrating their fifth birthday.

Over a lifetime, one in every 50 women in Afghanistan will die during their pregnancy

Although this is very high, is much better than it was in 2000, when it was 1 in 11.

Newborns make up almost half of all child deaths. Increasing the number of midwives who help mothers give birth has reduced the number of deaths. The Afghan Midwifery Project has trained so many women since 2002 that in 2011 there were 5 times the number of midwives (almost 2,500) than when they started.

According to data from the World Health Organization, This training has meant women can expect to live over 15 years longer! (Up to 64 years old, from 47)

Unfortunately, the percentage of money spent on health by the government dropped by half from 2002 to 2011.

Without more money for health, the government cannot meet its promises to the Afghan people.

The government needs to get more health workers into the communities where children In 2006, Afghanistan only are dying. had seven doctors, nurses and midwives for every 10,000 people. That’s a long wait to stand in line for!

But the community also needs that knowledge too!

The country has a new plan that will increase that to 9 doctors, nurses and midwives for every 10,000 people - but it’s only a start!

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Doctors and nurses need more knowledge and training in how to care for new born babies and young children and to treat malnutrition. This needs to be part of the government’s health plan.

This will stop babies being fed the wrong things or parents deciding to not take their children to the doctor until it is too late.

Indonesia: Mission 3: End Child Exclusion (#4) His last destination before he reported back is an interesting one. It sheds light on the first MK prototype, which we built as female.

In 2007, girls in Indonesia were still twenty per cent more likely to die than boys.

Another huge difference is in wealth. Poor children were still more than twice as likely to die…

Poor children were still more than …as twice as likely to die… children born into rich families.

Indonesia’s children living in parts of the countryside and on remote islands were more than twice as likely to die than children living in urban areas.

The government spending on health is low, at around 5 percent of the budget…

Although both models were just as effective, that was not the case in Indonesia it seems.

…yet the government has said that nutrition and child survival are priorities! The scientists are not happy.

The President has said he wants to reduce stunting in children by just under half over the next 10 years or so….

One thing we’ll need to make these changes happen is an increase in the health budget. We need people at the local level to campaign for better health services for children and their families. Then we can get more champions for child survival inside the government to send the same message.

We have to persuade governments to act! We need to bring this issue to the politicians in the capital city! Every member of the public needs to care about health!

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The national government and the provincial and district authorities need to do more to tackle child deaths!

UN Headquarters: Mission Review Looks like that was his last stop.

He’s coming home!

If we are going to hit the 2015 millennium goal, we all need to follow my mission goals:

1) Health care for every child: both the equipment and the trained doctors and nurses for all children.

2) End Malnutrition: Launch a national campaign in every country with high malnutrition levels to reduce stunting, and give every child access to nutritious food and clean water.

We’ve got this far…

3) If these two things are going to happen, we need governments to publicly promise to fund their plans...

...and ensure that the money is spent well.

4) Everyone should commit to ending preventable child deaths by 2030!

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…now it’s over to you to make sure the Milennium Development Goal becomes a reality!

Millennium Kid: Fighting to Save Children’s Lives Save the Children is the world’s leading independent organisation for children. We work in around 120 countries. We save children’s lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfill their potential. EVERY ONE is Save the Children’s biggest ever global campaign. We’re campaigning to make stopping children and mothers dying a political priority and mobilising thousands of people in both rich and poor countries. What drives the campaign is our vision that no child under the age of five will die from preventable causes and public attitudes will not tolerate a return to high levels of child deaths. Our overall aim for the campaign is to have helped achieve Millennium Development Goal 4 on new-born and child survival. This means also addressing the health and wellbeing of mothers and accelerating progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5.

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