We support the accelerated action to reduce mortality due to preventable and treatable causes among children under 5 in the district of Kenema, Sierra Leone.

What we do

At ”la Caixa” Foundation, we've renewed our commitment to collaborate with UNICEF in order to reduce deaths among children under five due to preventable and treatable causes (pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, malnutrition) in the district of Kenema, in Sierra Leone.

In 2022 alone, 72 children under five died every day from such causes in Sierra Leone, totalling 26,300 children in one year. This alliance will help to address the main obstacles to universal access and good quality healthcare for these children, ensuring they have the same opportunities to benefit from comprehensive health and nutrition services to guarantee their right to survive and prosper.

This alliance represents a step forward in this joint enterprise undertaken by ”la Caixa” Foundation and UNICEF Spain and provides a considerable boost for the healthcare systems and the prevention of child mortality in Sierra Leone.


How we do it

To bring this about, we carry out the following actions:

  • Train those involved in community health, focusing particularly on maternal and neonatal health services.

  • Implement improvement mechanisms to increase the quality of paediatric care in the 30 community health centres in the district of Kenema.

  • Buy and distribute essential child healthcare supplies for the Community Health Centres and community health workers, including drugs such as amoxicillin, rehydration salts and zinc supplements.

  • Promote the Sierra Leone government's Child Survival Action Plan and the Child Health Programme, with training at a national level and in the district of Kenema, as well as providing IT and communication equipment.


Goals

In 2024, the main aim of this alliance is to guarantee decent, good quality access to healthcare services for over 80,000 children under five (60 % of the total population of under-fives) within the district of Kenema.


Where we act

In the district of Kenema (Sierra Leone).

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Since 2020, ”la Caixa” Foundation and UNICEF have joined forces to combat several health-related and social problems in different parts of the world and, since 2015, they've been strategic partners, helping to reduce child mortality worldwide through the ARIDA programme (2015-2021) to combat pneumonia, with the healthcare response to the emergency in Ukraine (2022), and now by reducing deaths among children in Sierra Leone.

Over 80,000
children with access to healthcare services and treatments

290
health workers trained