FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE – In our communities, breastfeeding continues to play a vital role in improving maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). In Sierra Leone, United Methodist health facilities have observed remarkable benefits resulting from increased awareness and practice of exclusive breastfeeding.

Pastors and Imams speak from the pulpit and in the mosque telling men that a father’s role is important too. If we support women, the children will grow strong. Our MNCH data shows a noticeable decline in malnutrition among infants under six months of age, which we attribute largely to increased exclusive breastfeeding rates.

Through health education, peer support and community outreach, more families are embracing breastfeeding as both a natural practice and a lifesaving intervention.

Breastfed infants in our catchment communities are showing stronger growth, fewer cases of diarrhea and respiratory infections, and overall better immune responses compared to those who are partially or not breastfed.

Mothers who breastfeed exclusively often experience quicker recovery after childbirth. Our reports indicate reduced postpartum bleeding, faster uterine contraction, and emotional bonding that contributes to mental well-being are other benefits of breastfeeding. Mothers may find it useful as a means of family planning, and they engage regularly in clinic visits, health education sessions, and child welfare monitoring, reinforcing the continuum of care.

We have seen a steady improvement in attendance and outcomes at our well-baby clinics. Mothers who breastfeed always bring their children for regular growth monitoring, immunizations and nutritional counseling. This has created a stronger connection between families and United Methodist health services, fostering trust and long-term participation in child health programs.

Catherine Norman is the Health Board Coordinator for United Methodist health facilities in the Sierra Leone Conference.

Global Health

Global Ministries provides a way to support United Methodist health facilities and the medical personnel who help to create sustainable support systems for women who choose to breastfeed their babies through the first six months of life.

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, give to Abundant Health.

The post The impact of breastfeeding in Sierra Leone appeared first on Global Ministries.

ATLANTA – Lisa arrived at Old Mutare Mission Hospital in Zimbabwe almost a month before her delivery date. She lives more than 37 miles from the hospital, the closest to her home. She came to stay at the Waiting Mothers’ Shelter to be sure she could give birth in a medical facility. The shelter was just refurbished last year with the help of some outside supporters. The labor and delivery units were expanded and new equipment installed using grants from Global Ministries.

In many medical facilities across Africa, patients’ families are expected to provide all or some food during their stay. Fortunately, Old Mutare established a large garden last year to grow nutritious food for patients. “The vegetables we now eat are grown in this garden. I do not have to ask my relatives to bring me vegetables from back home,” said Lisa.

The garden was possible because the water system had also been reconstructed, with new storage tanks. The Zimbabwe Episcopal Area Health Board has been working on improvements to Old Mutare Mission Hospital over time, as well as to two other United Methodist hospitals, Mutambara and Nyadire, several smaller clinics.

Every year, the Global Health unit of Global Ministries awards grants to health boards and other United Methodist partners to support improvements in health care and administration. In addition, some episcopal areas receive grants for Mother, Newborn and Child Health; prevention and treatment of communicable and noncommunicable diseases; and for major infrastructure and facility improvements increase health care for everyone using the services.

Global Health partners with health teams from 14 sub-Saharan countries, encompassing nine United Methodist episcopal areas. The UMC supports hundreds of health facilities – hospitals in some cases and many small, remote clinics. Currently, about 190 health facilities are working on grant projects.

Working through partners that oversee the work of United Methodist health facilities in Africa, Global Ministries has helped to improve health services in many African countries. Health partners track the progress in their facilities, gathering information on their patients and services, the kinds of health problems they encounter, length of treatment, medical supplies and medicines. With reliable data, Global Health reports reaching, on average, more than a million beneficiaries each year. Last year, 48 grants were awarded among the health boards with 24 additional grants to other partners for a total of $5,291,657.

Reconstructing maternity and delivery wards and building new mothers’ shelters improve the conditions in which babies are born. But it takes much more to keep a baby thriving once he or she leaves the hospital.

United Methodist health teams have created community outreach programs that spread health information on the importance of prenatal care, giving birth in medical facilities, returning to the doctor for check-ups, vaccinations, and how to prevent malaria and other diseases and provide food with better nutritional value.

Some health facilities have staff that visit communities and set up clinics for health checks. Others train volunteers to give out important health information in their communities.

When major grants are released for reconstruction or building new facilities, water infrastructure is often included in the building plans. Clean water goes a long way in preventing disease. Most facilities open new wells and other clean water sources to the surrounding community.

Transportation is another factor for remote health clinics and hospitals to consider. Few rural residents have cars, and some communities lack roads altogether. Stocking facilities with supplies and medications is a constant challenge in some remote areas, especially in rainy seasons. Reliable vehicles are sometimes part of the plan in a health administration budget so conference staff can get to the facilities to assess operations.

The first UMC health boards were developed by UMCOR when Imagine No Malaria collected significant funding for malaria awareness, net distribution and treatment. The campaign needed organized and efficient ways to distribute supplies, information and medicines, that included follow-up by UMC health facilities. The creation of health boards worked so well to coordinate responses that the Global Health unit was developed to extend the work and further explore ways to improve health outcomes.

Today, United Methodist health boards and other partners have expanded their mission as professional health administrators. Even with the uncertainty of government aid, especially from the U.S., the mission of church-related health facilities, which draw support from larger religious and nonprofit networks, continues. They often serve in remote places among the people who need them the most. Family members the world over love and cherish their children, and in God’s eyes, every baby is a gift and a promise for abundant life.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Global Health
Through United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen whole networks of health responses, from revitalization of facilities and staff training to building better water sources, developing sanitation facilities and promoting nutrition. Global Health concentrates on preventing, testing and treating those affected by preventable diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19, and supporting the most vulnerable populations, including mothers, newborns and children.

Support the work of global health.

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MCDOWELL COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. – “I live on land owned by my family since the 1800s, maybe longer. I never wanted to move anywhere else. I grew up surrounded by family. This is the place I want to be until I pass away – and then be buried.”

Diane Farmer never used to think about the water, which had always been plentiful and clean, flowing from her family’s well in Leckie, W.Va. When she married in 1974, she and her husband built a house on the family property and a generation later, one of their children did the same. She didn’t imagine then what it would be like to grow old in McDowell County today, without clean water.

“We buy gallons of bottled water to drink, to do dishes…we do not even give our animals our well water,” she explained.

Farmer is a member of Boyd’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Leckie. Her pastor, the Rev. Brad Davis, cares for this and four other churches in the Welch Charge. He arrived two years ago and was appalled to discover what some of the members and their communities struggled through every day.

McDowell County has produced a bounty of fuel for West Virginia’s energy business over many decades, coal and natural gas, predominantly, as well as steel production. In 2019, strip-mining companies started production in the area, one just up the road from the Farmers.

“Our water started getting rust colored. It has only gotten worse since then,” Farmer confirmed. “We use the water to clean, to take showers, not really even to wash our clothes. We have to pay attention to what color clothing we buy because we know our water will ruin it.”

McDowell County is one of the poorest in the U.S., and the communities of Anawalt, Leckie and Gary are some of the hardest hit by the current six-year water crisis. All have Methodist churches that are part of the Welch Charge.

Pastor Davis, and a colleague pastor, Caitlin Ware, felt a clear directive from God to do something.

The small communities have made plans and proposed solutions to build clean water systems. But Anawalt’s already-approved public system upgrade project needs full funding ($7 million) and includes a plan to connect the affected wells in Leckie to the system. Gary has a municipal water system in need of technical and infrastructure upgrades, which has not been a state priority for years.

Residents have spent far too much money on filters and filter systems that break down under the pressure of the rust and black sludge that enters their wells and public water systems. They made many trips to spring water sites to collect water for themselves, family members and neighbors, only to discover that the spring water also had contaminants. In addition, Central Appalachia has some of the highest cancer rates in the country.

Although the lack of clean water is a problem that affects other counties and other states that cross parts of Appalachia, the pastors began to investigate what other groups were doing and decided to concentrate their efforts on the three municipalities in this area where they had direct connections into the communities through their churches.

Rev. Ware, who first arrived in the southern coalfields to complete a graduate school requirement, says they started by developing an educational immersion experience called “From Below,” funded by the United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia. She currently pastors the Blackwater Charge, three United Methodist churches in Tucker County, W. Va., which borders Maryland.

“We took a group of nearly 40 people along the path the miners took to Blair Mountain during the West Virginia Mine Wars, visited historical sites, and met with community members actively working for the benefit of McDowell County. From Below morphed into a movement advocating for clean water, land access and economic development in the southern coalfields,” Ware explains, “From Below: Rising Together for Coalfield Justice.” They partnered with the West Virginia Faith Collective to strengthen their advocacy and further amplify neglected and forgotten voices in McDowell County.

“We believe the solution to this problem involves funding public water infrastructure projects, organizing local people to ensure those projects are carried out, and providing residents with clean water until those projects are completed,” Ware said.

Rev. Davis confirmed that since March 2024, their team of volunteers has provided residents of the three towns with thousands of cases of water, a stop-gap measure until permanent system solutions are begun. It’s a colossal feat, and it also represents a mountain of plastic. The Welch Charge contacted the WV Conference Disaster Response Coordinator, Jim McCune, for help. This is out of the ordinary for most disaster response offices, but McCune described the water crisis as a long-term, slow-moving disaster whose severity only increases the longer residents must wait.

McCune’s United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) connection put him in touch with Global Ministries’ Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. A WASH grant allowed them to obtain a 500-gallon “water buffalo.”

“We can now provide the water in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way,” said Davis.

The conference disaster response team arranged to fill the portable water buffalo from the Welch water system, the county seat of McDowell, and transport it to Gary, where residents have been supplied with refillable containers. Residents of all three towns can come to get water, and volunteers will also continue deliveries for those who need it.

Deliveries from the tanker began on Mar. 17, despite a more common disaster that has preoccupied the disaster response teams; southern West Virginia was hit by a severe storm on Feb. 15 that caused major flooding. Even Davis’s home was affected, and Ware joined a team to provide early response.

Global Ministries advocates safe drinking water and basic sanitation and hygiene facilities for all people as a basic human right and is committed to improving health and wellbeing in underserved and marginalized communities in the U.S. and around the world.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR. Quotes from the pastors and lay people were sourced from an interview by Natallia Rudiak for “Reimagine Appalachia.” The full interview can be watched here. For more information about From Below and the West Virginia Faith Collective, click here.

Celebrate World Water Day with a gift to Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) projects, Advance # 3020600 to keep this precious, life-saving resource flowing.

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ATLANTA – A family from Venezuela has just arrived in the city of Danlí in the south of Honduras and presented themselves to Honduran authorities. They have come a long way – through Colombia, into Central America through Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. But now, their 8-year-old son, who is with them, lies with his head on his father’s shoulder. He is unresponsive.

Fortunately, the United Methodist Mission in Honduras (UMMH) opened a clinic in Danlí two and half years ago and today, the Honduran migration officers notify the clinic when they encounter sick or injured migrants passing through. The clinic team arrived quickly to assess the boy’s health and agreed that he needed immediate medical attention…in a hospital. He was near death from severe dehydration, and the team convinced his parents to follow the advice. The specialized care saved his life.

In 2024, the Rev. Daniel Contreras, a new missionary assigned to UMMH, became the interim country director and he has confirmed that the small clinic served 10,000 patients last year. “The United Methodist Church in Honduras is committed to ministry with the poor and marginalized. Our health work started with a project for the elderly in Danlí, which then developed a fruitful partnership with the authorities. Sadly, the need for a clinic for migrants is greater now than it was before,” Contreras noted.

Others who are referred to the clinic, either by immigration officers or by word-of-mouth, receive direct care from the professional staff at the clinic. They see many cases of less severe dehydration, which they can treat, people with chronic diseases who have run short on their medications, malnutrition, respiratory problems, diarrhea, cold and flu, skin diseases, gastrointestinal infections, foot and leg injuries and wound infections. In most cases, migrants recover and continue their journeys, whatever their destinations may be.

The Government of Honduras promotes universal health coverage but lacks sufficient funding to cover its own citizens, much less the transient population. The city of Danlí has seen as many as 1,500 immigrants passing through each day. Migrants’ need for free, accessible primary health care is great and so the government has found ways to partner with the church’s ministry, such as providing consulting rooms and an ambulance.

The clinic is open eight hours a day, five days a week, and they see an average of 67 patients daily. The volume of patients has continued to increase, but there is uncertainty about whether the flow of migrants to the North will continue as a new U.S. Administration changes policy and procedures for immigrants at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Although the Methodist Church in Honduras is small, it has found ways to contribute important resources to local communities through its mission and ministry. Health care for passing migrants was a needed resource that church members and leaders in Danlí believed they could provide. With a series of grants (currently working on a phase 3 grant) from Global Ministries through Global Health and United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), and partnership with immigration officials, the primary health care clinic they envisioned has become a reality. In addition, the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, has a close relationship with the UMMH. Its support in 2024, the congregation’s third annual grant, helped to meet the clinic’s increased demand for services.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

UMCOR and Global Migration

Learn more about migration ministry and programming through Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Global Health
Through United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen whole networks of health responses, from revitalization of facilities and staff training to building better water sources, developing sanitation facilities and promoting nutrition. Global Health concentrates on eradicating preventable diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19, and supporting the most vulnerable populations, including mothers, newborns and children.

Support the work of global health.

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_{Photo: David Badebye}

ATLANTA — According to the World Health Organization, nearly 40 million people were living with HIV globally in 2023. Of that number, 630,000 died from HIV-related causes. And over 1.3 million people contracted the virus that year.  

Despite decades-long advances in prevention, testing, treatment and advocacy of this preventable disease, there is still much work to be done to eradicate HIV and AIDS.  

Global Ministries’ Global Health unit supports Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) programs in African countries where HIV has taken a particularly harsh toll. These programs in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – all managed within UMC health facilities – are designed to protect pregnant women and children from the devastating impacts of HIV by routinely testing for the virus and preventing mother-to-child transmission.  

Many of these women come from rural communities, working tirelessly on small family farms while raising children as husbands seek work in larger cities. There is often not enough food to go around, and fetching water can mean a long, arduous walk. While health care centers are within reach, the life-saving treatment needed for HIV –   antiretrovirals – can be a bus ride away and for many, this journey is simply unaffordable. 

In the poorest district of Uganda, Kamuli, the landscape is similar. Access to health care, safe and clean water, education and income generating activities are slim. Around 19% of the population live with HIV, with the numbers rising among teenagers and women.  

The converging realities of poverty and stigma led Inclusive Mission for Health and Hope (IMHH), a community-based Christian organization with ties to the UMC, to find an innovative way to empower single mothers and marginalized youth who have been disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS. With support from Global Ministries, IMHH supported 70 participants with training, seeds and small livestock to develop their farming skills and establish sustainable livelihoods.  

The training sessions were practical: participants learned modern farming techniques, including how to establish home gardens with vegetables, maize, bananas and tomatoes. They were taught how to choose quality seeds, plant in lines, apply fertilizers to increase production and pesticides to decrease disease. Additionally, goat rearing through zero grazing was introduced as a means of improving household food security and providing a viable income.  

Participants like Oyunai and Namuli Jeniffer found success. They excelled in tomato farming, from preparing nursery beds to transplanting, and their harvests allowed them to start small businesses at the local market. These businesses have provided a steady source of income, allowing them to meet their families’ basic needs and work toward a better future. 

The initiative doesn’t stop at farming. Recognizing that many rural areas also lack access to marketable skills, training in tailoring, hairdressing, carpentry, crafts and small business management was also offered. With the help of micro loans to purchase equipment, beneficiaries like Kaudha, a single mother, have been able to apply her skills in hairdressing and earn up to $2 a day—enough to support her two children and ensure they have food on the table. 

Through improved farming methods and the acquisition of new skills, households are not only more food-secure, but individuals are empowered both personally and economically.  

And the ripple effect is evident: families are breaking free from the cycle of poverty, and in time, will be able to provide employment for others, creating a stronger, healthier and more resilient community.  

In recognition of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, 2024, we celebrate the ways in which the UMC is helping women living with HIV and AIDS to thrive and live abundant lives.

Global Health 
With United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen networks of health facilities, from the revitalization of buildings and staff training to improving water supply, developing sanitation services and promoting nutrition. The Global Health unit focuses on the health of women and children and responds to diseases like malaria, HIV and AIDS, and Mpox. Learn more. 

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ATLANTA –Mpox, previously known as Monkey Pox, was so-named because it was first found in a distinct species of monkeys in Central and West Africa rainforests. But squirrels, pouched rats, mice and several other species have also been found to pass on this virus, which, when contracted by humans, is similar to smallpox.

The Africa Center for Disease Control reported that at least 13 African countries, including previously unaffected nations like Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, have reported mpox outbreaks, with suspected cases across the continent surging past 17,000, a significant increase from 7,146 cases in 2022 and 14,957 cases in 2023.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the countries with limited access to testing and care where the Global Ministries’ Global Health unit supports United Methodist health facilities, reported most (96%) of the confirmed mpox cases.

Dr. Damas Lushima, the UMC Health Board Coordinator for the East Congo Episcopal Area, notified Global Health staff: “The mpox situation has affected three provinces in the East of the republic and the situation is becoming worrying in South Kivu, North Kivu and Maniema.” Maniema province, with its capital in Kindu, is where the East Congo Episcopal Area offices are headquartered.

Dr. Megh Raj Jagriti, a program manager for Global Health, said that in recent weeks there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of countries in the WHO African region reporting mpox cases and outbreaks with almost 1,000 new cases reported in June 2024 alone, bringing the total number of cumulative suspected cases to 14,091: 2,673 confirmed cases and 511 deaths (majority in the DRC) by July 22, 2024.

The Global Health unit is providing technical resources, assistance and recommendations to United Methodist health board partners across Africa that are affected by this current mpox outbreak. When public health emergencies arise, UMC-supported health boards are equipped to respond because of the routine support they receive annually from Global Health. East Congo, Central Congo, North Katanga and South Congo health boards have all received various Global Ministries annual grants since 2017 to maintain adequate medicines and medical supplies, build new water facilities in selected sites, refurbish buildings and wards, and provide specialized training to medical personnel for sustainable health outcomes.

Roland Fernandes, Global Ministries’ general secretary, noted: “We are committed to ensuring that vulnerable communities are safe and protected from disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. We do this by strengthening the health systems of the health board partners to detect, evaluate and respond in a timely and sustainable manner to this and other kinds of health emergencies.”

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Global Health
Through United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen whole networks of health responses, from revitalization of facilities and staff training to building better water sources, developing sanitation facilities and promoting nutrition. Global Health concentrates on eradicating preventable diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19, and supporting the most vulnerable populations, including mothers, newborns and children.

Support the work of global health.

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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – Promoting health and wholeness has always been an important part of the Methodist tradition, from John Wesley’s Primitive Physick through the long history of medical missionaries to the current work of United Methodist health boards and many other partners supported by Global Ministries through the Abundant Health for All Initiative. Global Health is one of four missional priorities for Global Ministries and has long been an integral part of its mission and ministry, a main means for alleviating human suffering.

The Abundant Health for All Initiative grew out of the church’s successful 8-year Imagine No Malaria campaign, which began in 2008 and whose last funds will be disbursed this year. In 2016, the General Conference voted to expand its global health reach from addressing a single disease, as devastating as it still is, to promoting Abundant Health for All. It set a goal to provide life-saving interventions to 1 million children over the following four years.

With your help, Global Ministries reached that goal in 2020.

Global Ministries’ Global Health work didn’t stop when it hit the goal because sickness and disease have not stopped. Health challenges, especially those that disproportionately impact women and children, and are exacerbated by poverty, insecurity and climate change, continue to impact the world.

Global Ministries was privileged to receive funds to support partners globally in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During and after the pandemic, the Global Health unit and its partners, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, have continued working on closely aligned or integrated programming: Health Systems Strengthening to support United Methodist health facility networks; Maternal and Newborn Child Health services, including HIV and AIDS; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services, both at health facilities and in communities; and Imagine No Malaria, which has promoted malaria awareness, prevention, diagnosis and treatment in areas drastically affected by this infection.

Global Ministries is humbled and overjoyed to report that over the last five years, the lives of over 5 million women, youth and children have been impacted!

And it does not end here. The work continues through the care and commitment of partners.

In the video below, hear from one of Global Ministries’ partners: Ms. Joyce Madanga, Maternal Newborn and Child Health Coordinator in Nigeria.

Global Health is not just another church program. It is the whole church, as individuals and communities, together, seeking to live the abundant life God offers in Christ Jesus. The support of faithful United Methodists has allowed Global Ministries to share holistic health around the world on behalf of the church.

You can continue to be part of this great movement by seeing holistic health as your own mission to the community, by incorporating healthy living in your congregations and annual conferences, by supporting the denomination’s Global Health work, and by praying that all may know God’s healing grace.

Learn more about the UMC’s commitment to Global Health.

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ATLANTA – Every year on April 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsors World Malaria Day to commemorate the ways that people around the world continue to battle this deadly but preventable and treatable disease. Unfortunately, the message about causes and remedies has not yet reached all the vulnerable communities that are most susceptible to it.

In some areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women remain hesitant about seeking prenatal and obstetric care. They try, instead, to follow their family and tribal traditions, which have served their communities for hundreds of years. But some diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, require stronger antidotes than traditional practices can offer.

Mamu was one who tried to stay with traditional treatments. But then, three years ago, she was pregnant with twin girls, and when she did not feel well, she went to traditional healers for a remedy to bring down the fever, which was caused by malaria. But her babies were born prematurely; neither survived. So last year, when she became pregnant again, her husband convinced her to ask for obstetric services at the Nganza United Methodist Health Center. This time she attended regular prenatal appointments and followed the advice of the doctor and nursing staff.

“I have just given birth to my second son here without difficulty,” Mamu affirmed, as the staff asked her how she was doing. “We are in good health, I don’t have a fever, and my child too, is doing very well. I gave birth in very good conditions at the Nganza Health Center. I invite all pregnant women in the area to come and follow the prenatal care program.”

Part of prenatal care at the Nganza center – and for most United Methodist facilities partnering with Global Ministries – is a routine course of malaria prophylactics, much like what travelers take to avoid contracting it. Women also receive a long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net upon arrival at the center, and the combination generally keeps them free of malaria throughout pregnancy. This greatly improves the likelihood of delivering a healthy baby.

But it is best if families do not have to experience terrible personal losses for women to seek health care from professional centers. So, every year on World Malaria Day, and many more days during the year, volunteers recruited and trained in United Methodist health centers take their message to the streets.

Most UMC health ministries have developed systems that include church and community volunteers, youth teams and sometimes municipal groups like schools or civic societies to learn about malaria prevention and treatment. The groups then canvas a community with information about best practices concerning health. In the case of malaria, women like Mamu and their families are encouraged to come to the health facilities as soon as they think they are pregnant to begin prenatal care. At other times, these groups may organize community clean-up days, sharing information about recognizing and eliminating environmental conditions that encourage mosquitos to breed and multiply.

UMC health boards in Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria all train dedicated volunteers who disseminate needed information among their own communities. In Nigeria, groups of young people first approach village leaders, whether they are traditional tribal leaders, Christians or Muslims, it doesn’t matter. Once they have discussed the plan and received approval, they enter a community with local support and encouragement.

Another way in which malaria programming is integrated into UMC health operations in Africa is through a robust practice of strengthening all the health systems that help communities to thrive. In addition to medicines, testing kits and other malaria supplies, activities such as improving or rebuilding facilities, furnishing new units, ensuring a healthy and accessible water supply and a well-trained staff are all things Global Ministries considers and supports with partner health boards.

For some years research has progressed for a vaccine solution to the parasite that causes malaria. Just recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved two malaria vaccines as safe and effective. On World Malaria Day, health officials in Liberia and Sierra Leone will launch malaria vaccine campaigns and make the RTS,S vaccine available. UMC health facilities will stock vaccines and advocate to make them part of the routine cycle of vaccinations for every child.

By June 2024, the DRC and Burundi should have vaccines available and Mozambique and Nigeria will follow. These vaccines, if accepted and administered, should greatly reduce malaria and the effects of severe malaria, including death, in populations repeatedly affected by it. Global Ministries will work with conference and episcopal area health boards to support vaccination programs, working with local governments and communities to encourage vaccination of children ages 5 and under.

Efforts to reduce and even eliminate malaria continue through Global Ministries’ health work with African health boards and beyond. Since the INM campaign was launched in 2008, the program has reached thousands of people with malaria prevention and control strategies. The grassroots efforts to eliminate malaria in local communities goes on, absorbed by other Global Health programming and coordinated by health professionals in their own communities. With introduction of the vaccines, a new era in malaria prevention is dawning.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Global Health
Through United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen whole networks of health responses, from revitalization of facilities and staff training to building better water sources, developing sanitation facilities and promoting nutrition. Global Health concentrates on eradicating preventable diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19, and supporting the most vulnerable populations, including mothers, newborns and children.

The post Reducing malaria community by community appeared first on Global Ministries.

ATLANTA – “Water for Peace” is the theme of World Water Day 2024, celebrated on Friday, March 22. The struggle to access clean water along with ambiguity around water rights can plunge communities into local and regional conflict. As global temperatures rise, worries about having enough water for households, gardens, agriculture and animals raise tensions.

Public health, food, energy systems, economic productivity and environmental integrity rely on water resources that are equitably managed. When these vital human activities are secure and stable, tensions decrease, and peace can take root, even in communities that experience conflict and scarcity.

United Methodists can celebrate World Water Day with pride. Through Global Ministries’ Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program, water resources in places like South Sudan and Haiti have been improved and maintained through peaceful means that invite participation by whole communities.

The Primary Health Care Unit in Alok, South Sudan, saw a drastic increase in cases of diarrhea and stomach ailments in the surrounding community just two weeks after its well broke down.

The health care facility, a local market and two schools depend on this well for clean water, but the local health authorities said they did not have parts to fix the pump. Villagers began to draw untreated water directly from the Kueng River.

A visionary program developed by partners in South Sudan and supported by a grant from Global Ministries sent a team out to repair the well the day after they were notified. This remarkable team is one of 14 trained across areas of the Bhar el-Ghazal region of South Sudan.

Most team members participating in this initiative are women with no prior mechanical training, often heads of households, responsible for children and aging parents. Today, their families’ lives are greatly improved because this training includes courses on how to make well repair a business…a business in which they thrive.

Normally, when a well breaks down in South Sudan and there are no technicians and no parts available, it may be weeks, or even years before a repair crew arrives. The Women’s Well Repair Initiative provides a solution and increases economic resources, self-sustainability, women’s participation in community initiatives, health care, education and overall stability for communities in which it works.

Two key partners involved in this training project, Water is Basic (WIB) and Women’s Empowerment Solutions Initiative (WESI) of South Sudan, designed the program to reach 300+ communities in Bhar el-Ghazal. Well and pump parts are purchased wholesale and stored at local churches and other community facilities willing to warehouse them.

Program managers in South Sudan sought out women who could handle the physical demands of well-repair and the ability to learn a new trade, whose families were struggling. Churches nominated candidates, like Julia, a mother of three in Alok whose husband was absent. Her pastor described her as “someone who bore the weight of suffering most acutely within her community,” yet the congregation voted unanimously to nominate her for the training.

Today, she is a team leader, her children are enrolled in school and she has improved her home and helped others in her family build homes too.

Another project supported by Global Ministries in Bhar el-Ghazal is working to drill new borehole wells in four villages. This partner, Mission to Alleviate Suffering in South Sudan (MASS), not only builds the wells, it helps communities form water committees and identify members for training. Like the WIB-WESI program, 10 water mechanics are being trained to keep the wells in working order.

An additional campaign to provide training in hygiene practices and distribute WASH supplies to roughly 7,500 residents in the villages ensures that residents understand the best WASH practices and water resource maintenance. Conflicts over water are greatly reduced when the community itself sets up and maintains water committees.

Adut, one of the women chosen to serve on a water committee in Aweil North, takes her responsibility seriously. “I am here to represent women and show our community that women, just like men, can play an important role in driving community development. I will work with my colleagues to ensure our water point remains operational and that when we have a breakdown, we will solve the problem within the shortest time.”

Miles across the Atlantic Ocean from South Sudan, Haitian communities that have endured natural disasters, civil unrest and relocation for many reasons assess resources for clean water and sanitation in their villages.

A grant to Fondation Voix des Communautes de Base (FVCB), formerly known as Heart to Heart, has helped about 10,000 people to form Mutual Solidarity (MUSO) community groups to construct and maintain household latrines and handwashing stations and clean up their environment. Combined with community education on proper hygiene, they have a good chance of decreasing outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases that plague Haiti.

A member of one of the MUSO groups noted: “We didn’t know that one person can contaminate others living in the same community when he or she doesn’t respect the good principles of water, hygiene and sanitation. I don’t want to cause the people in my house and neighborhood to get sick. That is why I decided to build my latrine.”

On World Water Day, people the world over express their thanks for this wonderful gift of God. Of all the resources the world has to ensure everyone has water, it is people – working together – that is the most powerful resource of all.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor for Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Global Health
Through United Methodist conferences and health boards, Global Ministries works to strengthen whole networks of health responses, from revitalization of facilities and staff training to building better water sources, developing sanitation facilities and promoting nutrition. Global Health concentrates on eradicating preventable diseases, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, and COVID-19, and supporting the most vulnerable populations, including mothers, newborns and children.

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