Currently, around one in seven children in Southern Sudan will die before they reach the age of five.
Children suffer from chronic malnutrition and many die every day from preventable diseases such as malaria, measles and diarrhoea; illnesses that would be easy to treat in the UK but which are often fatal in this part of Africa because of a lack of skills and equipment.
The situation for pregnant women is equally dire. South Sudan has the highest maternity death rate in the world. Most people don’t have access to clean drinking water or basic sanitation and there’s little information available about the link between hygiene and health. In addition, tens of thousands of families have very limited access to basic healthcare.
We have organised many trips to Yei with staff from Winchester - you can read about these trips by following the links on the right hand side.
The Winchester-Yei Health Link is funded entirely through charitable donations and grants. All members of the Link project are volunteers and all travel expenses are met by them directly or part-funded through external grants. Project funds are used 100% for the Link without any UK overheads being taken out.
We have been greatly helped by the Brickworks charity (click on the link on the right for more details) with our expenses and have just received a loan from them to make some accommodation habitable for volunteers from Winchester. We are now fundraising to pay it back!
If you would like more information about the Link, please e-mail Simon Struthers, simon.struthers@hhft.nhs.uk
Teaching midwifery students in Yei,
October 2011
