The social, medical and educational benefits are known to have an important and lasting effect on the welfare of families and therefore the nation. In Tanzania there has been a recent reorganisation of maternal and child health services to provide a more efficient, standardised service.
With a $2.7 million (6 billion/-) grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) has initiated Malezi II, a three-year project to scale up early childhood development (ECD) services in Tanzania’s Tabora Region. Indeed this is good news countrywide.
Malezi II builds on the success of Malezi, EGPAF's ongoing Hilton-funded project integrating early childhood stimulation into maternal and child health services, pregnancy care, and HIV treatment at 47 EGPAF-supported sites in Tabora.
Under Malezi, EGPAF has counselled 80,000 caregivers on early childhood stimulation and trained 400 health care professionals and community health workers in childhood development services.
We are told that Malezi II will capitalize on this momentum by expanding to 33 additional sites for a total of 80 across the country.
The project will implement a referral system to help locate children in need of ECD services, train hundreds of new health and community workers, and facilitate the active involvement of national and community leaders to ensure that ECD remains a top priority in Tanzania.
Malezi II will also introduce a new partnership with Development Media International (DMI), a UK-based organization that runs broadcast and digital campaigns aimed at changing behaviours with the goal of promoting health and well-being in developing countries.
DMI's existing project in Tanzania—a campaign on nutrition and early childhood stimulation—will benefit Malezi II as EGPAF and DMI conduct research and work to integrate ECD interventions into communities and health facilities.
Children affected by AIDS face an increased risk of developmental delay, with young HIV-infected children at the highest risk.
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation was created in 1944 by the international business pioneer of the same name, who founded Hilton Hotels and left his fortune to help the world's disadvantaged and vulnerable people.
The foundation currently conducts strategic initiatives in six priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance use, helping young children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition age youth in foster care, and extending Conrad Hilton's support for the work of Catholic Sisters.
In addition, following selection by an independent international jury, the foundation annually awards a $2 million humanitarian prize to a non-profit organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering.
In 2017, the prize was awarded to ICDDR,B, an international health research institute dedicated to solving the most serious health issues facing low and middle-income countries.
EGPAF, founded in 1988, is the global leader in the fight against paediatric HIV/AIDS, and has reached more than 27 million pregnant women with services to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies.
It today supports activities in 19 countries and over 5,000 sites to implement prevention, care, and treatment services; to further advance innovative research; and to execute global advocacy activities that bring dramatic change to the lives of millions of women, children, and families worldwide.
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