Finding
Over 400 million school-age children worldwide suffer from parasitic worms, harming their health, nutrition and cognitive development and threatening their educational access and learning. Worms can lead to anaemia and malnutrition and, as a result, children are either too sick or tired to concentrate in class or attend school at all.
YGL Response
Spearheaded by YGLs Kristin Forbes and Michael Kremer in 2007, Deworm the World (DtW) is an initiative to increase access to education by expanding deworming among the 400 million school-age children infected by worms worldwide. YGLs chose deworming because of the evidence that deworming is an extremely cost effective way to increase schooling and improve child health. Since 2007, with the incredible power of the YGL network, the task force has helped to develop partnerships between funders, implementers, governments, nongovernmental organizations and technical experts and de-wormed over 20 million kids.
Key 2010 Accomplishments
The programme has dewormed 20 million school-age children in 26 countries in 2009 and is on track to exceed that number in 2011.
Next Milestones
Continuing expansion and efforts.
Leadership
Kriston Forbes and Erik Charas
Comments and Contributions