| Children are the future of a nation The Foundation for Mother and Child Health (FMCH) works to improve the lives of mothers and children in local communities by providing programmes focused on health, nutrition, education, and sustainable skills training. A not-for-profit independent organization, we work with socially and/or financially disadvantaged communities regardless of their race, creed or gender. Our aim is to help children reach their potential by alleviating poverty and malnutrition. Children who are malnourished have lowered resistance to infection and are more likely to die from common childhood ailments such as diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections. Those who survive may be locked into a vicious cycle of recurring sickness and faltering growth, often with irreversible damage to their cognitive and social development. Undernutrition is an underlying cause of an estimated 53% of all under five year old deaths (UNICEF Report card on Nutrition May 2006). The problem of malnutrition in children goes hand in hand with a lack of disposable income within a family, poor knowledge of basic nutrition and hygiene practices and poor access to medical help, clean water and decent accommodation. All these factors play a part in this cycle of deprivation. The Foundation for Mother and Child Health in Jakarta runs programmes assisting impoverished families living in inner city communities. Programmes currently provided include health, hygiene and nutrition education for mothers and community health workers; access to medical care for both mothers and children; Early Childhood learning, supplementary feeding programmes and growth monitoring for young children; and skills training for mothers. The Foundation also runs a mobile health unit in Jakarta, allowing our experienced health educators, pre school teachers and sewing teachers to travel to other low income areas in Jakarta to work with other needy families. Similar programmes for mothers and children have been set up in Mumbai, India. Programmes set up in Aceh after the tsunami of 2004, and Sumatra after the earthquake last year, have now been successfully completed. In late 2008, FMCH started implementing its health, nutrition, education and small skills training programme on the remote island of West Timor, also in Indonesia. Working in several remote villages, statistics show that 65% of all under five year old children from these villages are underweight, and nearly 70% have stunted growth. In 2009, The Foundation for Mother and Child Health started working with refugee women from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Chechnya in Azerbaijan. These women, fleeing war, poverty or persecution, are desperate to keep their families’ together whilst waiting to be resettled in other countries.
Replicating ideas from FMCH in Indonesia, we started a successful micro finance scheme enabling women to buy sewing machines which they then used to make garments and other items. In 2010, FMCH started working in partnership with “The Orchid Project” – which aims to help empower girls and women. At the heart of The Orchid Project is a campaign to help end female genital mutilation (FGM) and allow girls and women to reach their full potential. Now in 2011, FMCH continues to expand its work in Mumbai, Jakarta and West Timor. In Mumbai programmes are expanding to include health promotion in primary schools; in Jakarta we are about to embark on a new project focusing on the provision of health promotion to women working in factories; and in West Timor we are expanding the number of villages in which we work. Through provision of all our programmes, the Foundation for Mother and Child Health brings together women and children from very different cultural, geographical and religious backgrounds, who in normal circumstances may never have met. We encourage understanding and tolerance of others in all our programmes - which in these troubled times is of great importance. Website last updated June 2011 | 
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