Why Niger?
Even before the ongoing political crisis, Niger remained one of the poorest countries in the world. It is a landlocked country in the Sahel region with a population of over 21 million people.
All of these factors are worsening with the growing insecurity in the region, mismanagement of natural resources, environmental degradation, rapid growth in the population, inherent gender inequalities and climate change.
What is Muntada Aid Doing in Niger?
Niger has remained the country of focus for Muntada Aid for the past three years. We are running several programmes in the country, including providing clean water, food, medical, community buildings and livelihood programmes to foster resilience among various sections of the population. We work to help vulnerable, elderly people, children, young girls and women in some of the most deprived communities in the country.
Muntada Aid Impact in Niger
Provide Access to Clean Water
Niger is the largest country in West Africa, among the worst access to clean water. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world.
Only 56% of the country's population has access to drinking water.
Water-related diseases and poor hygiene are among the leading causes of death among children under five.
What is Muntada Aid Doing?
Muntada Aid is working in Niger, providing sustainable and safer access to clean drinking water in some of the most remote and troubled regions in the country.
Since 2021, we have built 69 water stations providing access to clean drinking water to over 90,000 people daily.
How You Can Support
We are building medium and large solar-powered water stations, with a capacity of serving fresh, clean for drinking, domestic and agricultural purposes for up to 6000 daily. Setting up a Direct Debit is one of the best ways you can support our programme.
Donating just £5 monthly will help us build more sustainable water projects in Niger.
Give the Gift of Sight
An estimated 5 million people are blinded by cataracts each year. Blindness affects more than 4% of the population in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the most recent estimate of the burden of visual impairment indicates that 21.4 million people are visually impaired, including 4.8 million people who are blind.
Despite cost-effective solutions, such as cataract removal and the provision of eyeglasses, an extremely high proportion, estimated at 2/3, of these cases of vision impairment could have been prevented or treated.
It is estimated that regionally, just three ophthalmologists per million population are available in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Overall, there is a catastrophic shortage of professionals qualified to deliver optometry services in the region, insufficient eye health personnel in rural areas, and extremely low cataract surgical rates. Projected rates of personnel and Cataract Surgical Rates (CSR) are not expected to keep up with increasing eye health needs. The study suggests that without significant investment and appropriate action, many people will continue to unnecessarily experience avoidable and disabling vision impairment and blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa.
What is Muntada Aid Doing?
With your support, we are declaring a fight against cataracts in sub-Saharan Africa.
Since 2021, Muntada Aid has performed 3250 cataracts and lens replacement surgeries in Niger.
How You Can Support
In 2023, Muntada Aid plans to carry out at least 2000 cataract surgeries in Niger. Setting up a Direct Debit is one of the best ways you can support our programme.
By donating just £5 monthly will help us reach more people suffering from cataract blindness.
Alternatively, by donating just £75, you can fund a life-transforming cataract operation in Niger.
Please remember that some people who visit our missions travel from remote villages and have no means of food or shelter.
Muntada Aid is now serving warm, freshly cooked dinners to patients and their family members during their stay at the hospital. Most of these people have no means to secure dinner and shelter.
Malnutrition in Niger
Malnutrition is a major threat to children's health and development in Niger. According to 2018 data, 15.0 per cent of children are acutely malnourished in Niger (unchanged since 2006).
As Niger's population continues to grow, the burden of malnutrition will persist unless significant efforts are put into preventing malnutrition that addresses all the multisectoral causes. The number of stunted children is expected to increase by 44 per cent by 2025 owing to population growth.
The country has the world's eleventh highest rate of mortality among children under the age of 5, a population that barely has access to proper sanitation, low school attendance and harmful practices like early marriage.
Niger is a youthful and predominantly rural country. Its population of 21.5 million is 50 per cent female, 80 per cent rural, and 58.2 per cent below the age of 18. With close to half of Nigeriens living in poverty, the prospects of many children are dim, and they risk becoming the next impoverished generation. About 48 per cent of children live under the monetary poverty line, and 75 per cent of young children under the age of 5 are deprived of three or more essential social services.
Assessments have shown that most students (93 per cent) in primary grades 2 and 5 need help to read or do mathematics properly.
Adult literacy is very low – 14 per cent for women and 42 per cent for men.
Girls are less likely to go to school than boys, and children from the poorest homes are 1.6 times more likely to never attend school than children from the wealthiest households.
What is Muntada Aid Doing?
We are supporting a school meals programme for underprivileged children on the outskirts of Niamey, Niger. There are over 250 children at this school, most of whom come from impoverished families. These children often come to school without any breakfast and no guarantee of food for the day.
We are also building a modern kitchen, dining area, and washroom facilities, besides providing daily nutritious meals at the school premises.
Our food programme will provide cooked meals on the premises. The school dinner will consist of rice, lentils, vegetables and meat (chicken and goat meat will be served twice a week)
How You
Can Support
£6 Will Provide Nutritious Meals to a Child for a Week in Niger.
The programme will also have a long-term impact on the education of these children. According to a research paper by the United Nations, "on empty stomachs, children become easily distracted and have problems concentrating on schoolwork.
They become better students when their bodies are well-nourished and healthy. The incentive of getting a meal also reduces absenteeism. Most significantly, performance improves, and drop-out rates decrease."
Setting up a Direct Debit is one of the best ways you can support our programme.
Donating just £6 monthly will help us find nutritious food for children in Niger.
Livelihoods Programme
In West Africa, goat farming is improving the lives of family farmers, stimulating local economies, and making better nutrition more accessible. These indigenous livestock species are well-suited for West Africa, with a wealth of genetic diversity that makes them more adaptable to a changing climate.
In Niger, goats are amazing animals to help farmers fight and escape cycles of poverty, build rural economy, build resilience to climate change and empower women in rural communities.
What is Muntada Aid Doing?
Goats can help build more secure futures for whole communities. As part of our Livelihoods project, Muntada Aid offers a goat scheme where farmers in rural Niger have a set of 5 goats (1 male, one female and three kid goats) among vulnerable farmers, particularly women farmers, to help them additional sources of income.
How You
Can Support
Setting up a Direct Debit is one of the best ways you can support our programme. Donating just £6 monthly will help us build sustainable agricultural communities in Niger.
As the political situation in West Africa continues to boil, people in Niger need our help. Please support one of our programmes in Niger and help us build a sustainable community in the country.
PHOTO GALLERY
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