Child Survival Call to Action Media (Updated July 2)

In 1990, the year of the World Summit on Children, some 33,000 children died each day from preventable causes. In 2010, the number was 21,000. That’s progress, but not nearly enough. The goal must be to make the number zero. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 — Editorial in Asheville Citizen Times on June 5, 2012

World leaders gather June 14–15 in Washington, DC for a Child Survival Call to Action co-hosted by the United States, India, Ethiopia, and UNICEF. The goal of the Call to Action? Create a roadmap to END preventable child deaths. 

When UNICEF declared a Child Survival Revolution in 1982, the number of child deaths soared over 14 million per year. Through new technologies, committed action, and global partnership to increase access to education and health care for basic health interventions, that number has been cut in half.

Since the 1980s, RESULTS activists have used their savvy media advocacy skills to call attention to the need for more resources to fight preventable child deaths and have built support for cost effective solutions such as oral rehydration therapy (a salt-sugar blend that prevents a child from dying of diarrhea) and basic and new vaccines that prevent measles and pneumonia.

In 1992, RESULTS generated media for the second anniversary of the World Summit for Children in states across the U.S. (NY, DC, WI, MO, OR, FL, UT, AK, MD, NM, OH, IN, TN, SC, WA, CO, CT, NC, AZ, NJ, CA) to build awareness and political will to support child survival efforts.

Now in 2012, we are doing the same to end preventable child deaths within a generation.

You can use the editorial packet, action sheet, and laser talk to impact media in your own community!

Here are some of the outstanding editorials, op-eds and letters to the editor that RESULTS activists have already generated (UPDATED JULY 2, 2012):

Op-Eds

• The Trenton Times, Trenton, NJ – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday, Wilma Solomon 
• The Daily Journal, NJ – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday (reprint), Wima Solomon 
• The Cumberland Times-News, Cumberland, NJ – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday (reprint), Wilma Solomon
• The Burlington County Times, Burlington, NJ – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday (reprint), Wilma Solomon   
• The Clarion Ledger, Jackson, MS – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday, and We Can Help, Crickett Nicovich
• The Chicago Tribune, Triblocal, Morton Grove, IL – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday, Cindy Changyit-Levin
• The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, FL – Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday, Ken Schatz
• Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday, Frank Gilbert

Are you still working to get media in your local paper? We have some great new tools to help us with media. Here they are:

• Conference call recording from 5/22: great hook ideas including:
  • Father’s Day
  • Highlighting Members of Congress putting their photos on the Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday webpage
  • History of RESULTS with the issue (local angle). We are half way to ending preventable child deaths.
  • Collaborating with any of the 57 partner organizations on the 5th Birthday campaign to meet with editors
  • Asking a local pediatrician to work with you on media. They can all speak to how rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines have changed things in the US

Help us meet our media goals of getting 12 editorials. Use the editorial packet, action sheet, and laser talk to impact media in your own community!