Vitamin Angels work is really simple; we are ‘reaching the unreachable’, getting essential nutrients to children under 5 who are chronically malnourished, and saving lives. 1/3 of all child and maternal deaths are due to chronic malnutrition.

Our cost for reaching these children is 25 cents per child per year.

With 2 high dose vitamin A capsules, we can increase these children’s chances of survival by 23%, lower illnesses by 70% and stop them from going blind.

As the Copenhagen Consensus stated, vitamins are ‘the best investment for the biggest challenges facing the world’. 95% of our donations go to helping these children and we’ve been given a 4 star rating by Charity Navigator.

Vitamin Angels offers a simple and effective solution to a major global health problem.

After picking up 8 Oscars at the Academy Awards, and quelling controversy that raged from Mumbai to Hollywood, it would seem the story surrounding Slumdog Millionaire is over, but in fact only 1/2 the story has been told. I’ve seen that first hand though my work with Vitamin Angels in and around Mumbai for the past 14 years.

Hope for India’s millions of slum dwellers lies not in the winning of a game show, but in the hands of countless individuals dedicated to improving the conditions seen on screen. I just returned from India a few days ago and the situation in the slums is far worse and far better than Slumdog Millionaire begins to reveal. While the story of an underdog winning wealth and love captured the attention of millions worldwide, those toiling to change the reality hums beneath the radar every day. Slumdog‘ shows one child who has been blinded by an evil beggar master, when in truth hundreds of thousands are already blind in India today and many from something as simple as Vitamin A deficiency.

A small group from Vitamin Angels recently toured the slums north of Mumbai with Vitamin Angels local partner, Charitable Eye Care Trust, doing vitamin A and deworming distributions to prevent childhood blindness and increase child survival rates by as much as 23%. When you look at the slums from the outside, you only see the filth and poverty, but inside they are brimming with life and hope. In the slums, classes are being taught on child nutrition, prenatal health, transitioning from breastfeeding to solid foods, and much more. Most importantly, it is the people in the slums who are teaching these programs, making them sustainable.

When I arrived, people in India were really upset about Slumdog Millionaire, but I saw the movie as an opportunity. For many, the Indian economic miracle is finally putting a new face on the country, but ‘Slumdog’ shined too bright a light on those still largely excluded from the Indian economy. At Vitamin Angels, we see incredible work being done in the slums and hope in the faces of the children we serve. For us Slumdog Millionaire is a wonderful opportunity to tell their half of the story.

Eliana is doing something.

Earlier this year she interviewed Angelina Jolie at the Santa Barbara Film Festival (go to Santa Barbara Teen Press, http://www.sbmsteenpress.org/, and search for Angelina Jolie) and in response to Ellie’s question about what students today can do to make a difference in the world, Angelina said ‘Find something you really care about’.

So Ellie found Rwanda. She is now reading the stories of the survivors and next week she will be getting to meet them, bring prenatal vitamins (every child on her trip will leave 1 healthy mom and 1 health baby in Rwanda by giving a pregnant mom 270 prenatal vitamins), giving Vitamin A and antiparasitics to village health promoters (she is starting to work for Vitamin Angels early!) and play with their children and in the most real way let them know that one thirteen year old girl on the other side of the world heard their story and wanted to do something to make a difference.

The Lancet earlier this year said that 1/3 of the child and maternal deaths every year are due to chronic malnutrition. The Copenhagen Consensus (with 5 Nobel Laureates) issued a press release at the end of May saying that if you look at everything from AIDS to terrorism, the world’s best investment for undernourished children, is vitamins. With zero to spend on research and not having to search for decades to find the ‘cure’, we can get basic nutrition (read; vitamins) today to children all over the world and in the process save millions of children’s lives. Millions. Maybe not genocide but still what is it when you have the ability to save millions of children’s lives and you do nothing?

There are lots of ways to get involved. The organization that I founded and now champion, Vitamin Angels, is one way. We’d love to have you get involved with us by holding a fundraiser, doing an education evening in your home, helping us get the word out to your email list, my space or facebook contacts. But Vitamin Angels isn’t the only way you can make a difference. If you’re already doing something, please tell us your story.

BTW – tomorrow I’ll tell you about Eliana and Angelina, just like I promised.

As a Jew, on the most real level I understand, genocide is hard to comprehend. Walt who was at the meeting last night had done some research and informed us that as far as genocides go, in sheer numbers, Rwanda’s is below China, Russia, and Germany. But who’s counting? Actually maybe that is the problem – Who is counting?

Anthony Zolezzi opened up our annual fund raising event, Celebration of Angels, last year asking the audience to imagine sitting down to breakfast tomorrow, opening the paper and having the headline read ‘100 747’s Crash, All Children On Board, No Survivors’. And the day after tomorrow you sit down for breakfast and open the paper and you see the same headline; ‘100 747’s Crash, All Children On Board, No Survivors’. Anthony’s question that night was ‘How long do you think it would take every government in the world to say ENOUGH! This has to stop? How long do you think it would take every government in the world to say; We are going to do everything we can to bring an immediate halt to this today.’?

Yet this is the world we are living in today. Every day about 27,000 children die mostly from preventable causes. This adds up to 9.7 million children per year. And this figure is every year. In fact it is less than half of what it was 48 years ago when records were first kept. But how is 9.7 million children a year okay?

Are you involved in any organizations that reach out to children at high risk? Have you ever been personally involved in outreach or relief to a population group in need? Have you ever had that overwhelming feeling that you ‘had’ to do something to make a difference?

My 13-year-old daughter Eliana, is going to Rwanda on Monday. After years of hesitating to take her on Vitamin Angels’ trips, because of health and safety concerns she is going to a country that was witness to one of the largest genocides in recent history. She’s excited, my wife and I are a little nervous and our family and friends are incredulous as in ‘You’re sending her where?!’ It is all Angelina Jolie’s fault, but I’ll get to that later.

Yesterday at the pretrip meeting, all of the parents were comparing notes. Most agreed that even mentioning Rwanda is a conversation stopper. Earlier in the day while calling AAA to get Ellie medical traveler insurance, I mentioned her trip’s destination and the line went silent.

Have you ever allowed your child to go to a dangerous place? What was that like for you and for them? Has your child ever gone to a developing country to do service?