James Percy Foundation Home What we do Where How we work Trustee Recruitment Contact What we do The charity focuses on: The advancement of education. The promotion of health. The relief of poverty. We set out below our strategy for each of the above objects and the types of intervention that will be funded by us. Any project which involves the use of a type of intervention which is not described below will be carefully studied and approved on a case by case basis. Education In the last few decades, huge progress has been made in increasing the number of children from developing countries who attend school; however, evidence indicates that very few of these children are actually learning. Sitting in a classroom for years without even acquiring the most basic numeracy and literacy skills is a very undesirable outcome. It will be difficult for children to escape poverty if they do not have the necessary skills to access better jobs. High quality education is difficult to achieve and therefore we will only ever work with partners that are highly competent in this area. We will support the following interventions which focus on improving learning outcomes: Pre-primary classes. Supplementary classes (primary and secondary). Incentives for teachers: paying a variable part of a teacher’s salary which will be conditional on their attendance or the performance of their students (provided this does not lead to “teaching to the test”), etc. Adding extra teachers on short-term contracts. Improving child nutrition (see nutrition section below). Subsidizing school fees for girls (and other groups that have a higher than average likelihood of not completing their education). Conditional cash transfers (provided this leads to improved learning outcomes). Merit-based scholarships for primary and secondary schools. Raising awareness among parents of the importance of education. Teacher capacity building. Facilitating access to the internet through libraries. Supplying learning materials (only as part of a bigger intervention). Health When addressing key issues in child development, some of the types of intervention that we will support also benefit adults for little or no extra-cost, such as WASH or disease interventions. We will fund the following generic types of health-related interventions: Community-based monitoring. Capacity Building. We work in various health-related intervention areas, i.e.: Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) According to World Vision “More than 1,600 children under age 5 die every day from diarrhea caused by unsafe water—that's more than AIDS and malaria combined. Clean water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education are some of the most effective ways to prevent child disease and death” [1]. WHO states that “lack of access to safe, clean drinking-water and basic sanitation, as well as poor hygiene cause nearly 90% of all deaths from diarrhoea, mainly in children” [2]. We will support the following types of WASH interventions: Chlorine dispensers near water sources. Community led total sanitation: emphasising behaviour change, particularly the community’s responsibility to share in the creation of open defecation free communities. Boreholes and Public Hand Pumps: standard rural water supply scheme consisting of borehole wells equipped with handpumps. Nutrition The Gates Foundation states that “millions of children in the developing world suffer from a range of health problems with a common root cause: undernutrition. Many children who live in poverty don’t get enough food—or the right kind of food—to support normal growth and development” [3]. We will mainly focus on women during and after pregnancy and on children from birth up to the age of 5 (with a stronger focus on children under the age of 2), as this is the most critical period for growth, development and lifelong health. We will support the following types of intervention: Fortified foods and micronutrient supplements. Vitamin A and zinc supplements. School meals (only as part of an education intervention). High-quality and affordable nutritious foods that complement breast milk from six months old. Family planning According to the Gates Foundation, “Enabling women to make informed decisions about whether and when to have children reduces maternal and newborn deaths. It also reduces the number of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, increases opportunities for women, and leads to healthier families and communities. More than 220 million women in developing countries do not want to get pregnant, lack access to effective methods of contraception and voluntary family planning information and services” [4]. We will work through interventions that facilitate access to contraceptives and stimulate demand for them by informing people of the benefits of family planning. Interventions in this area are adapted to the local cultural context. Diseases Malaria According to the Gates Foundation, “Malaria occurs in nearly 100 countries worldwide, exacting a huge toll on human health and imposing a heavy social and economic burden in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. More than 200 million people suffered from the disease in 2010, and about 655,000 died, the vast majority of them children under age 5” [5]. We will support the following types of malaria-related interventions: Long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets. Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (reducing the relatively high prices that poor countries face for new artemisinin combination therapies). Intestinal worms (helminths and schistosomes) The Copenhagen Consensus states that “When a child is infected by parasitic worms, the worms live and grow inside the stomach and intestines. The worms can drain essential nutrients that the child eats, causing malnutrition” [6]. We will work through school-based de-worming interventions. Tuberculosis Estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2012 revealed that up to 74,000 children die from TB each year and children account for around half a million new cases of TB annually. The Copenhagen Consensus states that “the cornerstone of TB control is the prompt treatment of active cases using first-line drugs, administered through the DOTS (directly observed therapy, short-course) strategy which has five elements: (i) political commitment; (ii) diagnosis primarily by sputum-smear microscopy among patients attending health facilities; (iii) short course chemotherapy with 3-4 drugs including effective case management (including direct observation of treatment); (iv) a regular drug supply; and (v) systematic monitoring to evaluate the outcomes of every patient started on treatment” [7]. We will work through interventions that use the DOTS strategy. Vaccines “Vaccines save millions of lives a year and are among the most cost-effective health interventions ever developed” [8]. In 2008, WHO estimated that 1.5 million deaths among children under the age of 5 were due to diseases that could have been prevented by routine vaccinations. We will support the following types of intervention: Increasing access to child immunisation through GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) or one of its partners. Incentives for vaccines (small non-monetary incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated). Enteric and diarrheal diseases “Enteric (gastrointestinal) and diarrheal diseases are a major cause of childhood death in the developing world, killing nearly 1 million children under age 5 each year” [9]. We will support the following types of intervention: Increasing access to rotavirus vaccines (through GAVI or one of its partners). Expanding access to ORS and zinc and stimulating demand for them. Pneumonia “Even as global child deaths have declined from 12.6 million to 6.6 million over the last two decades, pneumonia has remained the world’s leading cause of death among children under age 5” [10]. We will support the following intervention types: Increasing access to pneumococcal vaccines (through GAVI or one of its partners). Increasing access to meningococcal vaccines (through GAVI or one of its partners). Community level antibiotics distribution. Maternal, neonatal & child health “Every year, complications from pregnancy and childbirth claim the lives of nearly 300,000 women and permanently disable many more, mostly in developing countries. Mothers suffer primarily from hemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labor, and disorders caused by high blood pressure” [11]. We will fund interventions that enhance frontline health workers’ skills, such as training traditional birth attendants and encouraging demand for them. Education and awareness We will support interventions that bring accurate health information to those that are at-risk and help dispel myths and misinformation, helping people adopt better practices and stimulating demand for the necessary health products and services. Relief of poverty The poverty relief interventions that we will support will also have an educational or health component, such as Conditional Cash Transfers for education. These interventions are described above. Our objective is to fund interventions that provide more opportunities to people to make a living and not just to cover their living expenses. If you want to submit a concept note in any of the above interventions find out How we work. References http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/clean-water http://www.who.int/elena/titles/bbc/wsh_diarrhoea/en/ http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Development/Nutrition http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Development/Family-­‐Planning http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Health/Malaria http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/projects/guide-­‐to-­‐giving/child-­‐health/deworming http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/Infectious%2BDisease.pdf http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Development/Vaccine-­‐Delivery http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Health/Enteric-­‐and-­‐Diarrheal-­‐Diseases http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Health/Pneumonia http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-­‐We-­‐Do/Global-­‐Development/Maternal-­‐Neonatal-­‐and-­‐Child-­‐Health James Percy Foundation Registered with the Charity Commission 1144494