Pneumonia kills as many as 940,000 children under the age of five every year and is a major cause of infant mortality, particularly in less-developed countries, according to UNICEF.  But now a new alliance between UNICEF and Spanish “la Caixa” Foundation, one of the largest private charities in the world, aims to “save the lives of thousands […]

French born Simone Veil, née Jacob, a woman full of courage, rebelliousness, resilience and dignity, a fighter and strategist of reconciliation, died on 30 June 2017 at the age of 89. She fought for peace and remembrance, despite being arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 in Nice, France and taken with her family to the […]

Skin-to-skin Contact Helps Child Development The human touch, in this case skin-to-skin contact, sometimes called “kangaroo care”, is essential for healthy physical and psychological development. Holding a newborn, and even more so a premature baby, against skin on the chest of an adult, usually a parent, increases the probability that the baby will grow healthier across the board.  Many studies […]

Few have heard of Dr Jack Preger. That’s probably because he is an inconspicuous, modest person. Yet since leaving farming to become a medical doctor relatively late in life, at the age of 42, he has offered medical treatment free of charge to hundreds of thousands of poor people in Kolkata, India. It all started […]

Have you tried it? Aquagym is excellent exercise, accessible to all. Its benefits are many and varied. Doing gym in water works not only the body but also the spirit. Whether the workout constitutes a gentle “aquasenior” class, a more strenuous “aquafitness” lesson, or intensive “aquadynamic” or “aquarobics” sessions, its variety of movements at each intensity […]

Every AA battery contains enough zinc to save the lives of six children. A company called Teck launched the Zinc and Health program in 2014 to fight zinc deficiency. The lack of zinc can cause serious problems, such as growth retardation, loss of appetite, impaired immune function and slow wound healing. In severe cases, it can cause hair loss, […]

InSitu Foundation is a tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to training dogs to detect cancer in humans. According to the Foundation, “Dogs’ accuracy levels have been proven to be 88% specific, and 99% sensitive in the early detection of lung and breast cancer.” So just as dogs have been trained to find narcotics, explosives, insects (lice or […]

What is Pacer Center? It’s a place that provides assistance to children with disabilities and to their parents. Concretely, Pacer Center offers workshops on mental health and emotional or behavioral needs, for instance, and assistance through such programs as the American Indian Project, geared to parents of Native Americans with children at risk of developing disorders. […]

“Yes,” Revolution Foods’s founders answer: the front line of education is the lunch line. The company says good nutrition makes “more productive, more attentive, better motivated and better performing students.” The Revolution Foods company is dramatically transforming the school lunch by providing healthy food for millions of low-income children in America. Most of the meals it serves are for children enrolled in the […]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has placed its big bet for the future. The annual letter written by Bill and Melinda Gates details the bet they are making in 2015, which doubles down on the bet they made 15 years ago, in 2000, when they founded their foundation. The bet is this: “The lives of […]