No Child Born to Die

The trouble with the interweb is that it moves so bloody fast. No sooner had I been deprived by a cup of coffee of my connection to the World Wide Social Life than Red Ted tagged me. It didn’t hurt too much, fortunately.

I asked PD to draw a picture of herself when she is a Big Girl. She literally laughed in my face.

“Mamma,” she said, “I am three. That makes a Big Girl.”

Hmm.

And now TiddlyOmPom Pom *hums “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside” for the rest of the day* has gone and tagged me too.

Once again, I have requested artwork from PD.

She is “a bit too busy, maybe later.”

Hmm.

I fear she may not make it to adulthood, though it won’t be down to illness and disease that is entirely preventable. PD is aware that there are children who are not as lucky as she is: we sponsor a child with World Vision and as she grows she will learn more about children in other countries. I don’t think she, or her little sister, appreciates how lucky she is every time she is stabbed unexpectedly in the arm with a needle by a smiling nurse. I wouldn’t expect them to. It hurts. But I’m guessing it hurts a lot less than dying.

Save The Children & “No Child Born to Die” Campaign

In January Save the Children launched it’s most ambitious campaign to date, No Child Born to Die. Every year 8 million children under five die from illnesses we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Save The Children is focusing on the provision of vaccinations and healthcare workers. In June there is a meeting in London hosted by David Cameron and attended by other world leaders. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vaccinations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries.

If this funding gap is met the vaccines that could then be provided would save the lives of millions of children.

This week 3 bloggers/vloggers are going to Mozambique to follow the journey of a vaccine from the coldstore in the city right down to a rural community. They will write, make films and tweet about their experiences, the children and families they meet and the challenges of “cold” vaccinations in hot countries.

The bloggers going are diverse, Lindsay Atkin (@Liliesarelike) is a hugely popular YouTuber, Chris Mosler (@christinemosler) is an influential parenting blogger and Tracey Cheetham (@tchee) is a popular political blogger and recently elected councillor.

In lieu of a marvellous piece of artwork, I would like to share with you PDs career aspirations for the future. She turned three on Wednesday and now hopes to be:

a) a princess

b) a dog

I can’t imagine her not growing up to be whatever she wants to be. I can’t imagine what it must be like to not have access to the medical care that I take for granted. I can’t imagine carrying a child, giving birth to it, raising it, knowing all the time that it won’t see adulthood. No child deserves that.

I’m taking part in this crafty challenge to support the work of Save the Children – to spread the word about their No Child Born to Die campaign and to highlight the funding shortfall for vaccines.

The instructions are really simple:

1) Get your child to either draw or craft a self portrait of themselves now or in the future. Check out our self portrait on some tips to get the littlies interested. Even a simple circle with dots and lines is sufficient for us!!!

3) Sign the Save the Children petition and then pass it on to your friends.

4) Write a blog post about it as soon as possible, including info about Save the Children and the petition. We want as many people linked up AND signed up the petition by Sunday 29th May 2011

5) Tag 8 fellow blogger friends

6) Come back and link up your posts, so we can all share your craftiness

7) If you have time, visit each other posts and say hello!

Did I mention the petition bit? SIGN IT NOW!!

Oh, and I tag: