Main navigation

Without enough vitamin A, up to half a million children go blind every year.

About the project

Children in Cambodia will get vital help to save their eyesight - through our project to deliver vitamin A to 1.2 million children in seven countries across Africa and Asia.

With our partners Helen Keller International (HKI), we are providing Vitamin A supplements to children in five poor districts in Cambodia, which have no Ministry of Health partner.

In developing countries, vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of childhood blindness. Around 70% of children who go blind in these countries will die within a year.

The vitamin helps keep the eye moist and healthy, and supports growth and development of a healthy immune system. We can reduce the mortality of children by up to 34%, just by giving them enough vitamin A while under five years old.

Worldwide, 127 million pre-school children and seven million pregnant women in the developing world suffer from vitamin A deficiency.

Blindness in children is thought to be responsible for about one third of the total economic cost of blindness.

HKI Cambodia has been working to improve Vitamin A levels in the community, with the Ministry of Health, and supported by Seeing is Believing. We have delivered health education for mothers, and training for health workers and volunteers.

By the end of the project we aim to have:

• Provided 1.22 million children with vitamin A, each year for 3 years
• Supplied sustained vitamin A supplementation twice-yearly for children aged 6-59 months
• Helped children in seven countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Other projects in Cambodia