American Red Cross Awarded Its Second USAID Child Survival Grant

Highly competitive award will support a “best-practices” nutrition and disease management program for 80,000 women and children in Cambodia

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, April 28, 2004 — American Red Cross International Services was awarded the 2004 Child Survival Grant for Cambodia from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This four-year, $1.5 million grant, will allow the American Red Cross, in partnership with the Cambodian Red Cross, to provide life-saving health care interventions to 80,000 children and women of child-bearing age in the Siem Reap Province of Cambodia.

"This project represents the next generation of the ongoing partnership between the American Red Cross and the Cambodian Red Cross," said Tim McCully, director of Asia region programs at the American Red Cross. "The key is our ability to draw upon the volunteers of the Cambodian Red Cross and their ability to reach down to the village and family level to provide life saving information."

The award, part of USAID's Child Survival and Health Grants Program, will help address high rates of child morbidity and mortality in Cambodia through promotion of critical nutrition and breastfeeding practices, immunization against deadly diseases such as measles and malaria and community-based disease management of the sick child, where caregivers and practitioners will be trained in improved treatment of conditions that claim the lives of children in developing countries in alarming numbers.

According to 2001 United Nations Development Programme statistics, the infant mortality rate in Cambodia is 97 deaths per 1,000 live births. The rate in the United States is seven deaths per 1,000 live births.

The USAID Child Survival and Health Grant Program, which began in 1985, was established to improve the capacity of U.S.-based private volunteer organizations and their local partners to carry out effective, sustainable child survival programs around the world.

In 2003, American Red Cross was awarded the first-ever grant for a child survival program in Albania. A partnership between the American Red Cross and the Albanian Red Cross, the Albania Child Survival Project aims to improve the health status of children up to five years of age, mothers and women of child-bearing age by reducing diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infection, improving nutrition and enhancing family planning services. The project is expected to serve more than 220,000 Albanian women and children by September 2008.

As part of the world's largest humanitarian network, the American Red Cross alleviates the suffering of victims of war, disaster and other international crises, and works with other Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to improve chronic, life-threatening conditions in developing nations. We reconnect families separated by emergencies and educate the American public about international humanitarian law. This assistance is made possible through the generosity of the American public.