Sunday 29 August 2010

Blogladesh

While you are doing whatever you are doing this lazy Sunday (I'm watching The Dish Presents: Weddings Gone Wild and drinking a Mountain Dew) three women are on a flight somewhere where I'm pretty sure Dew and the Dish don't exist. No neon yellow pop or trash tv round-ups? Why would someone go to such a place?

Siân, Josie and Eva are travelling to Bangladesh with Save the Children Fund to highlight the work they are doing in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Every year almost 9 million children under the age of five die. These three women will be tweeting, creating video and photo galleries and writing about their experiences in Bangladesh live and direct.

In Bangladesh, 36% of the population live on less than US$1 (64p) a day and 83% live on less than US$2 (£1.28) a day. Extremely poor households are often dependent on income from their young children and around 7.4 million children are engaged in child labor.

Almost 50% of Bangladeshi children under five years old are underweight or too small for their age. Approximately 2.4 million children aged 6-10, are not enrolled in primary school and the number of street children is estimated to be over 7, 00,000.

Every year around 250,000 children die in Bangladesh before reaching their fifth birthday. They die from things that can be easily prevented or treated like diarrhea, pneumonia and infections and from lack of proper maternity care.

What can we do to help? Make as much noise as possible. Follow these bloggers on their journey, watch their videos and re-tweet their story. You can follow Siân, Josie and Eva on twitter and RT using the #Blogladesh hashtag, because awareness is half the battle.

While I sitting here drinking my Dew and watching football (NotBlondeHusband has come home since I've started) and Blondie Boy is upstairs snug in his bed with his belly full and sleeping soundly, these women are on their way to experience a diametrically opposite situation.

So please read their stories, share their experiences, make some noise and help make a difference.

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