Global Volunteers mobilizes and engages short-term volunteers to help developing communities deliver all the essential services every child needs to reach their full potential. We’ve organized 12 Essential Services into three broad categories to better visualize and leverage their impact:
Eradicating Hunger – providing school and household gardens, child nutrition, micronutrient supplementation and improved stoves.
Improving Health – providing nutrition, hygiene and physical and mental wellness education, infectious disease prevention, de-worming and hands-on care.
Enhancing Cognition – providing general education, girl’s education, potable water and sanitation facilities, psycho-social support.
These 12 Essential Services are applied comprehensively within community development projects where local leaders request them. They are the foundation of the Tanzania Reaching Children’s Potential Program (RCP); a child-focused, parent-driven, family-centered, and community-led effort. It begins with pregnancy, and continues through children’s 18th birthday, with a focus on the first 1,000 days of life. In Tanzania, parents participating in RCP have successfully reduced childhood stunting by 57% through volunteers’ efforts by:
- Teaching nutrition, hygiene, food preparation to children and adults in schools and in worshops
- Helping establish household gardens using EarthBox® technology for pregnant women, infants and toddlers
- Distributing fortified meals, toothbrushes and toothpaste, hand sanitizer and other needed supplies to participating RCP families
- Demonstrating proper handwashing with soap and water
- Building handwashing stations, chicken coops, smokeless stoves and rainwater catchment systems
- Supporting women’s co-ops and entreprenurial ventures
- Promoting mental and physical wellness and providing professional health care assistance at Ipalamwa General Clinic (IGC)
- Training teachers in pedagogy, English and creating supportive classroom environments
