Healthier Children in Vanuatu’s Tanna communities

Karen’s 10-month-old son Junior has the chubby cheeks and playful nature of a healthy, alert, and happy baby.  But before World Vision Vanuatu’s Tanna Helti Komuniti (THK) project, children in Karen’s community, including her oldest son, three-year old Maxwell, were often sick.

In communities in Tanna, in Vanuatu’s south, surveys before the THK project began showed 46.5 percent of 243 children surveyed were stunted- well above the national average of 23 percent.

“In the past children were plenty sick with diarrhoea, coughs and flu and we didn’t know why….it was too difficult to go to hospital. World Vision helped us (parents) understand causes of sickness and the importance of ANC (antenatal care) checks for pregnant mothers….Now all children are healthy, not sick.”

It’s not just Karen’s children who are healthier, as the project name suggests, whole communities in Tanna are now healthier.

The 2011-2014 project evaluation findings show reduced rates across all categories of malnutrition including stunting, significant reduction in diarrhoeal cases in children 0-59 months while immunisation rates have also significantly increased. Tanna Helti Komuniti was funded by the Australian Government/DFAT.