Issue 4 2009 > Two Million More Vitamins Make their Way to Needy Children
Two Million More Vitamins Make their Way to Needy Children
In 2007, Crown entered into a partnership with Vitamin Angels, an organization dedicated to providing basic nutrition and fighting vitamin A deficiency childhood blindness around the world.
A dedicated team of indigenous health care providers, Ministries of Health and education, other NGOs, and staff members from Vitamin Angels have been working together to provide and deliver vitamin A and antiparasitics to needy children around the world. Staff members from Crown have also been volunteering their time to assist with the transportation and logistics. One of the first projects was the delivery of vitamins in 2008 to Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Vietnam, Bolivia, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua.
India
In early 2009, a team from Crown India stepped in to help, picking up the Vitamin A and albendazole tablets at Meenakshi Medical Hospital Center in Madurai and distributing them to Vitamin Angels partner organizations. This allowed Vitamins Angels to shift resources and reach 3 million more children worldwide in 2009. Almost 900,000 Vitamin A Tablets and over a million Albendazole tablets were distributed to 20 locations in 13 cities throughout India including Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, West Bengal, Dahok and Anand.
Howard Schiffer, president and founder of Vitamin Angels, described his experiences in Utar Pradesh, the poorest state in India, "This feels like exactly where Vitamin Angels needs to be. UP, as it is called, has a population of 180 million people, about half the population of the U.S. Fifty-six percent of the people live below the poverty line and over 500,000 children under five years old die here every year from chronic malnutrition alone.
'You begin to see the poverty in UP as soon as you enter the region by road. Crude mud and stick and plastic huts are everywhere--some little more than a tarp thrown over some branches. Ox carts and pony carts are common, carrying everything from giant stacks of grain piled four feet high to 10-15 people. (I felt sorry for these small ponies.) People were packed into, on top of, and hanging off the sides of every imaginable form of transportation from huge trailers pulled by tractors, to rickshaws, to flat bed trucks. Wooden wheels for carts are not uncommon and look like they were made a century ago. Open fires are everywhere as dusk settles and people begin to huddle around them to keep warm.
"The distributions today were packed and went on into the evening; we finished using flashlights, lanterns and a quickly strung string of a few small fluorescents. Fortunately all of our vitamin A and deworming tablets had arrived. A big thank you to Crown Relocations for all of their help in getting our product to all of our implementation partners within India! The poverty and malnutrition was readily apparent--a number of distended bellies from worms, very dry and brittle hair and lots of poor skin tone--all signs of vitamin A deficiency. It is clear we have our work cut out for us here. The people are incredible--all wanting to shake my hand and thank me--they so much appreciate that we took the time to visit their village and help their children. The Believers Church team of women we were working with were amazing, so enthusiastic and thankful to be able to help these children. The women here are all so shy, so it was fun afterwards when I did a short interview and got them all to smile and laugh."
Cami Allen from Vitamin Angels worked closely with Srinivasan Narayanaswami, known as Srini, Branch Manager for Crown Chennai, coordinating all the details required to manage this task. Ada Lauren from Vitamin Angels expressed her gratitude, "Srini was beyond stellar in arranging and coordinating the shipping to our field partners. It’s really an understatement to say that he and his team did an awesome job!! India provides many logistical challenges, all of which were handled efficiently under Srini’s expert guidance.
Cambodia
Crown is very proud of its efforts to help the needy children of Cambodia. Crown’s first project was the building, in 2007, of the Proa Chum School building located in a rural village two hours drive east of Phnom Penh. That project provided a new school building for 1,000 children living in this remote area of Cambodia. In 2009, Crown opened a second school building for needy children Cambodia. This school is unique because it integrates over 100 HIV positive children–many of them orphans. Most schools and even orphanages do not accept these children because they are HIV positive. Many other students of the school are HIV negative but orphaned by AIDS.
In an effort to facilitate even greater opportunities for the physical and cognitive development of the children, the Proa Chum School recently began distributing over 400,000 children’s multivitamins provided by Vitamin Angels. Through Ken Krezminski, who was one of the first Crown employees to volunteer his time to support Vitamin Angels, Crown arranged and paid for shipping 405,000 children’s chewable multivitamins from New Jersey in the United States to school children in Cambodia. These are enough vitamins for 1,110 children for an entire year.
In developing countries, more than 125 million preschoolers and 85 million school-age children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, putting them at risk of malnutrition, other illnesses and even death. Without sufficient vitamin A in their daily diet, up to 500,000 of these children go blind every year.
Read more about Vitamin Angels by clicking here.