Truly Good News!

I received a letter in the mail this week from UNICEF, one of my favorite organizations.  They announced the encouraging news that the annual death toll for children who die every day from preventable causes has dropped yet again -- from 22,000 a day to 21,000.  As UNICEF says "So today, take a moment to congratulate yourself.  Then tomorrow, let's all get back to work.  Because 21,000 children are still dying each day and that is 21,000 too many."

When I first started working in Haiti in 1983, the estimated number of children dying every day was 32,000.  We've made great progress!  A lot of the credit goes to the tireless village health workers who have taught the mothers how to make oral rehydration solution out of sugar, salt, and water to save the lives of the babies suffering from diarrhea.  For those of you who might think saving children's lives leads to greater poverty and higher density population, research shows you wrong.  When parents have confidence their children will survive they have smaller families and everyone benefits.