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Current page: Home > what we do > health
Health The ill-health of a community limits people's ability to collect enough water and grow enough food, creating a vicious downward spiral towards the death of the most vulnerable. Through support in building sand dams and providing traditional medicines, Excellent Development helps to address this problem. Water and Health 1.8 million people a year in Africa die of something as simple as diarrhoea - 90% of them are children below the age of 5. Water from the sand dams built by communities helped by Excellent Development reduce the instances of diarrhoea by providing a clean source of water. For children this enables them to go to school too, helped, where we can, by school water tanks providing clean water during the day too. With unclean water being a major source of illness in Africa, sand dams can have an enormous effect on the health of the whole community. For example, one self-help group we work with in Meka, Makueni district, lost 15 people to Typhoid in one month when collecting water from a permanent river 10 km away. Now they have built sand dams and a community pipeline and water tank, such deaths have been eliminated. Food and Health A secure water supply enables a greater range of foods to be grown. Improved diets and nutrition are good for health, and boost the immune system. More animal fodder can be grown too, and fatter livestock means more meat and also more milk, which is especially valuable for children’s health. A study carried out in one area of Machakos showed that after 6 years the numbers of malnourished children aged 1-5 reduced from 7% to 0%, and underweight children from 39% to 6%. A good diet is key to giving children a better start in life. Medicinal Forests and Health
80% of people in rural Africa depend on traditional medicine for primary health care. Many medicinal trees are increasingly rare and under threat, however, due to over-exploitation for medicines, firewood and building materials. Excellent Development plants long-term medicinal forests to repopulate these trees, creating 'living seed banks' which demonstrate that these species can be grown, to encourage farmers to grow them themselves. Some of the useful medicinal species can be difficult to grow, but when cultivated and harvested correctly they can provide a valuable source of income as well as medicine for a farmer.
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