Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight, I'm Joshua Leo.
Voice 2
And I'm Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 3
"One day when I was 17, I was visiting my mother at the hospital. A little six-year-old boy named Moussa was brought in. His whole body was shaking with convulsions. The mother said evil spirits possessed him. A traditional healer had been giving the boy plants and other medicines for 15 days. But his condition had only got worse. By the time his mother brought him in, it was too late. Moussa died that day of malaria. He could have been saved with medicines that cost about a dollar. That was the day I decided to become a doctor."
Voice 1
This is a story told by Houleymata Diarra, a doctor from Mali. Today's Spotlight is on her work with the group Save the Children. She is helping prevent the death of children in Africa.
Voice 2
Mali is a country in Western Africa. It is the seventh largest country in Africa. But Mali is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Mali has a population of about twelve million [12,000,000]. Most of these people live in poor rural areas with no electricity, telephones or clean water. They may not have schools or health centers.
Voice 1
People in Mali make very little money. And about half of the people in Mali are under the age of fifteen. Like in most poor countries, people in Mali can not always get good medical care. For many people, the only way to get a doctor is by walking, riding a bicycle, or riding an animal on dirt roads.
Voice 2
But the group that is most often affected by these problems is women and children. Many women get married at a very young age. Many of these girls get pregnant at a young age also. This can cause problems when it is time for the baby to be born.
Voice 1
When a baby is born in a poor village, there can be many different difficulties. The people helping with the birth may not have clean tools. And often, they do not have the correct training. This can hurt the woman giving birth. The most common cause of death for teenage girls in Mali is childbirth. In the United States, out of one hundred thousand [100,000] women giving birth, seventeen die. In Mali, that number is fifteen hundred [1,500].
Voice 2
And when a woman dies giving birth, often the baby dies too. Doctor Diarra says that people accept the high number of deaths as just a part of life.
Voice 3
"Babies are not even named in Mali until they are a week old. But even newborns who survive are at great risk."
Voice 1
Dr. Diarra says that one in every five children in Mali do not live to the age of five. But the saddest part of this number is that most of these deaths could be prevented. Simple medicine and health care could save the lives of thousands of children each year.
Voice 2
That is why Doctor Diarra is working with the group Save the Children. Save the Children was started in the United Kingdom. It has existed for over ninety [90] years. The group works to improve the lives of children all around the world. They do this through education, health care, economic aid, and emergency aid. Recently, the group has started a new project called "Survive to Five." The project aims to save the lives of children who are under five years old.
Voice 1
Nine million [9,000,000] children around the world die before they are five years old. That is twenty five thousand [25,000] dying every day. Save the Children wants to reduce this number with six simple solutions.
Voice 2
First, they give children injections of medicine to protect them against common diseases. Second, the group helps mothers with breastfeeding their babies. Breastfeeding helps protect babies from disease and it gives them important chemicals to grow strong. Third, they provide children with medicine to fight infections such as pneumonia. Fourth, the group helps to treat children who suffer from diarrhoea. Fifth, they provide thin cloth bed nets to keep children from getting malaria from infected insects. And finally, Save the Children helps provide better care for women and babies during childbirth.
Voice 1
Doctor Diarra is the Save the Children leader in Mali. She tells of one example where medicines are helping.
Voice 3
"A good example is tetanus infections. These are a major killer of mothers and newborn babies. They become infected from the use of a dirty knife to cut the umbilical cord, the tube connecting the baby to the mother. It also happens by putting unclean substances on the cut. But a simple injection of medicine for the pregnant mother protects her and her baby."
Voice 2
Save the Children led a tetanus medicine project in Mali. The goal was to give the medicine to one out of every three women who were old enough to have children. Health workers travelled across the country to people's homes. They gave the women in these villages the medicine. When the project was over, 80 percent of the women were protected. The group hopes to do similar projects to protect children from other diseases.
Voice 1
Doctor Diarra is happy that she can be part of the solution. She is happy that work is being done to help children live to be five years old. But she also knows that there is much work still in Mali. She believes that people all over the world can help children Survive to Five.
Voice 3
"As I see it, the world is one house. We are all women. Countries and continents make no difference. Mothers in Mali say to me 'I do not want to be afraid of pregnancy. I do not want to die. I do not want my child to die. I want my child to grow, to be healthy, to get an education.' It is the same way mothers feel in America, and everywhere. I think that once people learn about the situation in Mali and other places where women and children are dying needlessly, they will want to do something about it."
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