Background About the Project

Eritrea is a small country in the Horn of Africa about 4 times the size of the Netherlands. It is the youngest country in Africa gaining independence in 1991 after 30 years of liberation struggle. Infrastructure and other social services were almost non-existence upon independence. Everything had to be built up from scratch. Despite this lag in development, in the past 17 years, much has improved in the health sector. For instance, the government used an assertive policy to fight child mortality, increasing the number of children vaccinated from 9.6% in 1991 to 76% in 2002. This is still continuing. According to The Global Fund, Eritrea is one of the 7 countries worldwide where child mortality has decreased by more than 50%. Because the holistic approach used, diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis have also been reduced, contributing to the decline in child morality. In this respect, despite the fact 67% of Eritrean population lives in malaria infected area and malaria was top three causes of death in Eritrea at time of Independence, malaria today is no longer a leading cause of death. In fact, Eritrea is one of the top 4 countries next to Brazil, India, and Vietnam, who have shown tremendous improvement in reducing malaria.

The number of hospitals, clinics, and medical personnel has all risen significantly. Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go. There is a high demand for more trained medical personnel. Foundation Massawa believes in helping people help themselves and therefore we work with request from local communities and needs identified by the people themselves. Since children’s health is given a priority and the Eritrean Government and Eritrean people are working very hard to improve the health standard themselves, this project will be a positive addition to the ongoing efforts.

Foundation Massawa focuses on children because they are the future generation and hopes to contribute to their healthy childhood.

Here are some recent reports on Eritrean health care system

UNDP Report 2008

One Childhood

Partnership for Eritrea

Youtube movies of
Eritrea: Training of medicine in Eritrea

Part I - Part II