Global Citizenship

Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places on earth for women and children. Only 14 percent of its women have access to skilled medical childbirth care – partly because Afghanistan’s male health care providers are not allowed to treat women. Each day, 70 pregnant Afghan women die, many during childbirth.

Sakena Yacoobi, a longtime advocate for women’s rights, was determined to do something about the country’s high maternal mortality rate – and the fact that one in four Afghan children don’t live to see their fifth birthday. She went on to found the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL).

In 2006, the Afghan Institute of Learning partnered with Abbott, the Abbott Fund and Direct Relief International to improve the health of women and children in Afghanistan. The Abbott Fund has focused its support on empowering Afghan women through the training of female midwives to provide skilled assistance during labor and delivery, as well as care for infants and children. In addition, the Abbott Fund supports five of AIL's clinics – staffed and operated primarily by Afghan women – to provide quality patient care and services.

The Abbott Fund helps support AIL’s five clinics, which are staffed and operated by Afghan women. They serve mostly rural areas in the Herat and Kabul provinces.

To date, 78 women have completed midwife training through AIL. Most of them now work in clinics and hospitals.

Many of Sakena Yacoobi’s students take their training classes inside this converted shipping container, which is located on the grounds of the Herat clinic.

The women appreciate the opportunity to study, even in cramped conditions.

In addition to grant support from the Abbott Fund, Abbott supports AIL’s five clinics with donations of medical and nutrition products.

We support AIL’s five-day health education workshops, where local women learn the basics of health care and nutrition. The workshops also teach Afghan women how to read.

Over the past five years, Sakena Yacoobi’s organization has delivered reproductive health services to more than 145,000 Afghan women and conducted health education classes for more than 775,000.

AIL has also performed nutritional assessments for nearly 120,000 children.

The Abbott Fund is an active member of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, whose mission is to empower Afghan women by mobilizing public and private resources to advance women’s health, financial standing and social status.

Pediatric malnutrition is an ongoing problem in Vietnam due to a limited supply of nourishing foods and limited access to nutrition education.

Abbott and the Abbott Fund have teamed up with AmeriCares to support expansion of the Giao Diem Humanitarian Foundation’s Soymilk Nutritional Supplement Program, aimed at addressing nutritional health early in life.

The program reaches more than 4,800 children in three rural provinces – Quan Tri, Hue, and An Giang – where childhood malnutrition rates are among the highest in the country

So far, the program has reduced the prevalence of childhood malnutrition in participating schools by 40 percent.

The program works through local preschools and elementary schools like this one in Hue.

It educates teachers and caretakers about good nutrition and uses locally grown foods and ingredients to improve the nutritional intake in the children’s diets.

One school in Hue has its own garden, where teachers and caretakers are taught how to grow nutritious fruits and vegetables.

They also learn how to cook nourishing meals using local ingredients.

The children receive daily supplements of soy milk fortified with peanuts, rice, beans, noodle soup and fruit, along with 300 mg of chewable calcium.

The program trains teachers, school staff and parents in the basics of child nutrition so they can all work together to ensure the children receive well-balanced diets.

Teachers distribute soy milk after it has been made.

The Abbott Fund began supporting the program in 2006, and within 10 months, the prevalence of underweight children had dropped by nearly two-thirds.

Rates of anemia declined by 80 percent.