More Than a Million Dollars for Change: ABC News Viewers Fund Health Projects Around the World
From clean water to nutrient-rich food for children, viewers made a difference.
Dec. 19, 2011— -- In the last year, projects featured on ABC News have garnered nearly $1.5 million to improve the lives of infants, children and adults in the developing world. Here are the efforts you helped fund:
Moms Around the World: $100,000 from Johnson & Johnson, $50,000 from Disney Baby (Disney is the parent company of ABC News) and tens of thousands of dollars more from viewers like you amounted to total of $230,000 for world-class nonprofit organizations supported by the Million Moms fund. Learn more about the Million Moms Challenge here. Make a contribution of your own -- and do some holiday gift shopping too -- through the Million Moms gift guide.
Ethiopia: More than $100,000 in donations to charity: funded 20 water projects in Ethiopia, which has been plagued by decades of drought. Learn more about building wells in Africa.
Bangladesh: $40,000 in donations paid for a pipe that brings clean water to Kalshi Balur Math, a slum in Dhaka, as well as 20 brand-new latrines that will keep surrounding rivers from being used as a sewer. Parvin, who told us how she lost her son Rudoy to a waterborne infection, recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Learn more about dangerous water in Bangladesh.
Guatemala: In rural Guatemala, $200,000 in donations paid for a nutrient-rich peanut paste, Plumpy'Doz to feed children in five villages – children that were at risk of malnutrition and stunted height. Read more about malnutrition in Guatemalan children.
Somalia: $250,000 in donations provided peanut paste, measles vaccines and medical care for children in Somalia, where a measles epidemic, drought and famine have ravaged the nation. Learn more about Somalia's measles epidemic.
India: $100,000 in donations will pay for Embrace infant warmers, a low-tech baby sleeping bag that can be used in place of expensive incubators for newborns too small to regulate their own body temperature. Learn more about Embrace infant warmers.
ABC News also launched a contest of our own for college students to find simple solutions to help save women's lives. Students at Johns Hopkins University won the "Save a Life Maternal Health Challenge" with the invention of a pen-like diagnostic test that can screen for preeclampsia, the second leading killer of pregnant women. Read more about their invention here.
Watch the full story on the latest episode of "20/20."
