Our New Children’s Place International Strategy
We are pleased to share the new Children’s Place International three year strategy. Our three year goal: Rally the Chicago community and greater Midwest to change the life trajectories of 25,000 children facing health issues and extreme poverty in Haiti and Southern Africa.
Click here to see a summary of our plan and learn how you can help! Thanks to all who provided input.
Access to Health: Project Haiti is Launched!
Takeda Pharmaceuticals has signed an agreement with Children’s Place International to implement Access to Health: Project Haiti – an initiative to ensure that children and adults living in extreme poverty have improved health outcomes by investing in housing, water and sanitation, access and accompaniment to clinics, access to medications, treatments, and nutritional supplementation. Takeda, with its North American headquarters in Chicago, is focused on improving access to health for the world’s most vulnerable in alignment with its core mission. “This is a very innovative initiative where a major healthcare company and international NGO can do what they do best to change the life trajectories of children in extreme poverty,” saidCathy Krieger, CEO of the Children’s Place Association.
The project was made possible by Healthcare Partners for Children,a group of employees working in Chicago-area healthcare companies dedicated to improving the health outcomes for children in Chicago and overseas.
Photos above: Improved housing is one of the ways Access to Health will help vulnerable families in Haiti. Here, a single mother living with HIV will move from a rented one-room, overcrowded home (left), to a new house (right) with concrete floors, divided rooms and sustainable living conditions.
Supporting Children in Zambia and Botswana
Children’s Place International Board Member Dr. Gary Harper and Children’s Place Deputy Director John Sweeney completed a trip to Zambia and Botswana in July to better understand the most pressing needs of children and to confer with partners and colleagues to determine a path forward. They met with representatives from government, international and local child serving NGOs, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Agency for International Development. The trip uncovered significant opportunities to help in early childhood development and learning for children birth to five years old, and significant issues concerning pediatric and adolescent HIV/AIDS. Dr. Harper said, “Chicago is one of the world’s most economically powerful and resource rich cities, both in know-how and money. It is a city with its own deep experience working with children in poverty that can be used to shape a new path for children in sub-Saharan Africa through partnership with our colleagues on the ground.”
Picture above, from left: John Sweeney, Deputy Executive Director, Children’s Place International, and Gary Harper, PhD, MPH, Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan.
