RCP Impact Report September 2020

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

IN UKWEGA WARD,

RURAL TANZANIA

Akili ni mali

– Knowledge

is wealth.

SWAHILI

PROVERB

On average, all children enrolled for at least 18 months improved

from being nearly severely stunted (-2.62 SD) to being not

stunted (-1.75 SD).

On average, stunted children enrolled for at least 18 months

improved from being severely stunted (-4.08 SD) to being not

stunted (-1.86 SD).

REMARKABLE RESULTS:

After the first two years of Global

Volunteers' Reaching Children's

Potential (RCP) Demonstration

Program in Tanzania (July 2017

through July 2019), children showed

statistically significant reductions in

stunting.

Stunting decreased by 7 percentage

points (from 37.4% to 30%) in children

enrolled in the program for at least 18

months - a 20% reduction.

RCP IMPACT REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

SEPTEMBER 2020

2017

2019

Of all children who were stunted when

first enrolled, 62% were not stunted

after 18 months.*

Of all children who were severely

stunted when first enrolled, 39%

were not stunted after 18 months.*

2017

*This is especially important because the severity of stunting normally increases substantially as

children get older, escalating in these villages from 23% at three months old to 62% at 24 months.

2019

Data analysis by Mindy Lull, Ph. D., Dana Cohan, Pharm.D., and Courtney Dudla, Pharm.D.

Candidate, St. John Fisher College Wegmans School of Pharmacy, in process of publication

2017

2019

30%

37%

reduction

Childhood stunting is rooted in poverty. It severely impairs

cognition, adversely affects the ability to learn and earn, and

perpetuates generational poverty. In Tanzania, stunting affects

nearly 40% of rural children, permanently shattering their

future. Stunted children struggle to learn and experience serious

physical ailments throughout life.

Stunting is wholly preventable. Children who have sufficient

food and nutrition and are protected from infectious disease

develop normally. They are not stunted. They benefit from

enhanced cognition, better health, and a substantially greater

ability to learn and earn. They have a greater capability to

contribute to society.

STUNTING

On the top of a mountain and at the end of the road, parents

in remote Tanzanian villages accomplished what on the

surface seemed impossible. They reduced stunting in their

children by 7 percentage points in 18 months. As a

comparison, it took 15 years (2005-2020) to achieve a 7

percent drop in all of Africa.

How did they do this?

Can it be replicated?

Is it scalable?

It’s all about the parents. Together, they embraced Global

Volunteers’ Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP) Demonstration

Program, where they gained the knowledge, tools, and

support they needed to confidently change their behavior,

and ensure their children’s health and growth. The RCP

Program invests in children’s and mothers' nutrition, health,

and education focusing on the first 1,000 days of life to

address the root causes of stunting. All program components

are implemented and directed by local people with the

catalytic assistance and support of local staff and short-term

volunteers. Parents want to improve their children’s lives and

volunteers want to help them. This makes the RCP Program

both replicable and scalable.

THE POWER OF PARENTS

Childhood stunting is a “silent tragedy”

affecting families all over the world. And, while

it’s seldom covered on broadcast or print news, it’s

as serious as any major problem facing the world

today. This is the issue the Reaching Children’s

Potential Program directly addresses.

The first 1,000 days of life –conception

through the second birthday – are the

foundation of children’s health, growth,

and neuro-development. This brief

window determines every child's future.

OVERVIEW AND SCOPE

School and Household Gardens

Child Nutrition

Micronutrient Supplementation

Improved Stoves

The RCP Program is a child-focused, parent-driven, family-centered, and

community-led comprehensive approach that begins with pregnancy,

continues through the 18th birthday, and focuses on the first 1,000 days. This

program offers parents the tools to deliver the 12 essential services

prescribed by UN agencies in the Essential Package. Global Volunteers

organized these services into three major categories – eradicating Hunger,

improving Health, and enhancing Cognition. Hunger and Health directly

support Cognition.

Eradicate Hunger

Improve Health

5. Health, Nutrition, and Hygiene Education

6. Systematic Deworming

7. HIV and AIDS Education

8. Malaria and Dengue Fever Prevention

Enhance Congnition

9. General Education

10. Promoting Girls’ Education

11. Potable Water and Sanitary Latrines

12. Psychosocial Support

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Parents work hand-in-hand with local staff and short-term volunteers through

educational workshops, regular home visits, access to a modern community-

based health clinic, packaged nutritious meals, supplemental micronutrients,

and a host of relevant food production and health-related household

technologies. This combination of services addresses the whole child through

the 18th birthday by providing parents knowledge, tools, and support.

The RCP demonstration provides proof of concept for a comprehensive

community-based program that addresses the multi-generational cycle of

poverty by eliminating stunting. Poverty substantially limits food, nutrition,

and protection from disease for children, all of which cause stunting. Stunting

results in reduced intellectual capacity and ill health. Reduced intellectual

capacity significantly lowers economic productivity. Lower economic activity

prolongs poverty.

Eliminate stunting. Dramatically reduce poverty.

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Short-term volunteer professionals, working

through Global Volunteers’ RCP Program, provide

the knowledge, technology, and encouragement

parents need to improve their children’s future.

Maternal & Child Health Clinic Operations

The Ipalamwa General Health Clinic serves 10 communities in the

Ukwega, Mlafu, and Kising’a wards in Kilolo district. Focus of care

concentrates on children’s and women’s health and wellness, and

includes general and preventative medicine.

Nutrition Program

Two prepackaged nutritious meals and micronutrient supplements

are provided daily to pregnant women, mothers, their babies, and

school-age children. To promote food self-sufficiency, ongoing

nutrition education and food producing technologies and training

are offered to all RCP families.

Parents Educational Workshops

Volunteer professionals transfer health, hygiene, nutrition, and

child-rearing knowledge to parents through interactive workshops

focusing on the “how” to help families navigate and maximize the

first 1,000 days and beyond. The goals are to explain why certain

behaviors and technologies are important for their young children

and demonstrate ways to adopt and apply them.

Home Visits

RCP staff and volunteer professionals conduct regular home visits

to reinforce knowledge learned during workshops, help families

adopt new household technologies, and offer parents psychosocial

support.

Life-Enhancing Technologies

Household handwashing stations, container gardens, fuel-efficient

vented cookstoves, chicken coops, bed nets, and rainwater

harvesting systems improve quality of life and help control

infectious disease. All RCP families currently have access to

household handwashing stations, and many have container

gardens. As funding permits, all other technologies will be added.

Women's Co-ops

Village cooperatives produce and market a variety of handmade

and homegrown/raised products to generate income and increase

women's access to enterprise ownership.

RCP directly contributes to 10 United Nations SDGs and supports all others.

RCP IMPACT REPORT

COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH

SEPTEMBER 2020

Parents the world over want

what is best for their children.

When they know what to do to

keep their children healthy, have

access to relevant technology,

and are supported in their

efforts to apply the knowledge

and embrace the technology,

their children are not stunted.

When educated, those children

will realize their full potential

and the entire world will benefit.

THE POWER OF LOCAL LEADERS

RCP is conducted in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in

Tanzania (ELCT). For more than 30 years, Global Volunteers, a non-sectarian

INGO, and the ELCT have worked together in facilitating and catalyzing

human and economic development in the Iringa region. In many Tanzanian

communities, faith-based organizations play a major role in daily life. The

Lutheran Bishop and other denominations' pastors encourage local leaders

to invite Global Volunteers to conduct the RCP Program in their villages.

Local people must always be in charge of community development projects

because they are the only ones who can ensure lasting effect. The Tanzania

RCP Program functions under the leadership of the Ward Executive Officer, in

cooperation with the District Commissioner, and at the behest of village

leaders and parents. It is the parents who do the “heavy lifting.” They must

acquire the knowledge, modify behavior, and embrace new technologies.

They are the ones who change their children’s lives for the better.

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

From left to right: CCM District Chairperson Killian Myenzi, District Commissioner Asia

Abdala, Bishop Dr. Owdenburg Mdegella, Joseph Kakunda, MP, and Dr. Benjamin Makafu.

COMMUNITY TESTIMONIALS

Zakina's story

I have changed a lot in terms of how I raise

my children. The workshops that we are given

have been very helpful. I always learn

something new and they help us understand

in detail the truth about a lot of things. For

example, I have learned that singing can help

a baby’s brain to grow and think bigger. Since

I attended that workshop, I have been singing

to Winner and playing with her. Sometimes

she even does things I didn’t expect her to do

at her age. I have realized that I have made a

lot of mistakes in raising my previous

children, but I’m glad that I have come to

correct my mistakes through raising Winner

in a different way. Also, the workshop about

STDs opened my eyes. I’m so interested in the

program because it teaches us not only about

the children’s but also parents’ health.

Home visits are really important too. I like

home visits because we share different things

with our caregivers and they always remind

us of what we should be doing as parents to

our children.

I really love everything from the program

including workshops and home visits. This

program is really an advantage for the

community."

ZAKINAKIHWELE, RCP PROGRAM MEMBER

Since we started using the

handwashing station, my family

has never suffered from diarrhea.

I’m also grateful that my child has

never gotten sick from diarrhea

since the day she was born. The

handwashing station has been

very helpful to keep us healthy."

TUMPOKEEKIKOTI, RCP

PROGRAM MEMBER

I am growing spinach. I hope garden

boxes will be very helpful because

we will not be going out to get

vegetables. In that matter, I will be

getting vegetables every day and

throughout the year since they are

very important in our bodies as we

have learned. I appreciate the help

that this program has given to our

children."

SIFA KIFYASI, RCP PROGRAM

MEMBER

The program has added value to

my life because there were so

many important things I didn’t

know before. Now my life is easier

with this information."

SHARONKAYWANGA, RCP

PROGRAM MEMBER

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

One volunteer sitting with 50 women; one volunteer sitting

with a community and a local person around; one volunteer

for 10 days – that brings a lot of change. You throw the stone

at the middle of the well, and it replicates around the

society."

BISHOP DR. OWDENBURG MDEGELLA, ELCT

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

THE POWER OF VOLUNTEERS

Short-term volunteers are a renewable resource that, together with locally

empowered people, catalyze long-lasting change.

Parents want to improve the health and well-being of their children; however,

too often they don't have the necessary knowledge to do so. If they have the

knowledge but lack the means to apply it, frustration overcomes momentum.

When parents learn the importance of good nutrition, they must also have the

means available to provide their children a balanced diet. This is where short-

term volunteers come in.

Volunteer professionals transfer relevant knowledge to parents through

workshops and home visits. They also help families increase vegetable,

chicken, and egg production, provide household hand-washing stations, and

help build improved cooking stoves. Health volunteers offer patient care,

assist with deliveries, and perform pre- and post-natal checkups at Global

Volunteers' clinic. And, business professionals help women start village

cooperatives and offer advice on marketing, production, and financial

management. Other volunteers teach in the schools, conduct English

language camps, serve school meals, work in the greenhouse, and help repair

and maintain community buildings.

Public policy is rightly viewed from 30,000 feet because it must envision the

big picture. Short-term volunteers take policy to ground zero – to the one-foot

level where crops are planted, health care is delivered, and children are

taught.

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Global Volunteers partners and collaborates

with institutions that want to enrich the lives of

their students, members, and employees by

making a difference in the lives of poor children

and their families in developing communities.

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS

Community Partners who invite us, identify their needs, offer leadership,

work hand-in-hand with volunteers, embrace new knowledge and

technologies, and adopt habits for change.

Foundations who provide funding and materials to help ensure every child

can reach their potential.

Academic institutions, corporations, faith-based organizations, and

professional associations who offer knowledge, technologies ,and

opportunities for their members, employees, or students to volunteer.

Individual volunteers who serve in the field, invite others to join them, and

financially support ongoing efforts.

The RCP Program is successful because of its many contributing components.

Our Partnership Team consists of:

Each step of the way, no matter what, I walked away with the belief of

just how necessary the work Rise Against Hunger and Global

Volunteers is, not just for Tanzania, but the world. And, the way the

project is set up, you can’t help but want to support it.

SEAN SUTHERLAND, GLOBAL VOLUNTEER

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Eliminating stunting

can break the cycle of

poverty – forever!

When stunting is

eliminated, and children

receive continued

educational support,

each can reach their

potential and become

contributing members of

society. Everyone

benefits!

REPLICABLE AND SCALABLE

The Tanzania RCP demonstration was initiated in Ipalamwa village in 2017,

following Global Volunteers' pilot program in St. Lucia. In 2018, we replicated

the program in Lulindi and Mkalanga villages, and in 2019, started in

neighboring Ukwega and Makungu. We are now conducting the RCP Program

in these five villages, with the goal to add five additional villages in 2021 when

we will serve 1,200 families.

To scale the RCP Program requires funding. Startup costs for all construction,

medical equipment, household technologies, and vehicles to serve 1,200

families (approximately 10 villages) totals about $3.8 million USD. The annual

cost is $1.2 million, or $1,000 for each family of seven ($143 per person).

A reasonable source for the $1,000 per family annual funding is individual

donors contributing $84 per month. Many volunteers already contribute $25

to $400 monthly. The major challenge is the $3.8 million startup. But the

return on this investment is enormous, and will pay for itself multiple times

over.

Global Volunteers is looking for partners who want to invest in the future of

our planet by investing in children so that all may become contributing

members of society and the generational cycle of poverty can finally end.

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Stunting prevention begins with applied

parental knowledge about healthy pregnancies,

child development, food production, disease

prevention, and the value of education.

The Reaching Children's Potential Program was developed from Global

Volunteers’ Essential Services Prospectus published in 2011 (based on the UN’s

Essential Package), and a pilot project initiated in the impoverished fishing

village of Anse La Raye, St. Lucia in 2012. The pilot built upon a government

effort – the Roving Caregivers Program – which provided mothers support to

enhance early child development primarily through home visits.

Understanding the relationship between nutrition, health, and cognitive

development, Global Volunteers engaged short-term volunteers to expand the

program through parent educational workshops, household container

gardens, and a mothers’ club. In 2014, the government passed the

management of the Roving Caregivers Program to Global Volunteers.

Renamed Reaching Children’s Potential (RCP), Global Volunteers accepted a

request to replicate the program in Tanzania. Based on a 30-year partnership

with the ELCT and at the invitation of Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete,

Global Volunteers agreed to help address Tanzania’s significant stunting

problem by applying the lessons learned from the St. Lucia pilot. The Tanzania

RCP Demonstration Program started in July 2017.

RCP IMPACT REPORT

HISTORY OF RCP

SEPTEMBER 2020

From left to right: Global Volunteers co-founder and CEO Bud Philbrook, Bishop Dr.

Owdenburg Mdegella, and Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete.

The Tanzania RCP Demonstration Program is

led by local people. Global Volunteers follows

the guidelines required of rigorous research,

including collecting appropriate baseline data,

protecting individuals’ privacy, comparing villages

that are part of the demonstration with similar

villages that are not yet offered the interventions,

and producing statistically significant results.

GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers:

1. Go only where invited.

2. Do only what asked to do.

3. Serve under the direction of local leaders.

4. Work hand-in-hand with local people.

5. Support sustainable community-based projects.

Volunteers are “servant-learners,” working with and learning from local people.

Featured on CNN, CBS Early Show, NBC Today Show, ABC Evening

News, The Oprah Winfrey Show, People Magazine, Newsweek,

Woman’s Day, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The

L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and China Daily.

In consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC.

Focused on community-driven development.

37,000 short-term volunteers

serving on long-term

development projects.

Founded in 1984 as a private, nonprofit, human and economic development

INGO based in St. Paul, MN – USA.

To create, nurture, and sustain the well-

being of the world’s children and their

community, that they might realize the

full promise of their human potential.

To wage peace and promote justice

through mutual international

understanding.

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

200+ communities in 36

countries on six continents.

GOAL

MISSION

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Service program contributions, individual donors, donor-advised

funds, and foundations support Global Volunteers' RCP Program.

They help pay for nutritious meals for pregnant women and

mothers, micronutrients for infants and toddlers, medicines for the

clinic, textbooks and school meals for students, household

technologies, local and international staff, and so much more.

RCP FUNDING

GuideStar awarded Global Volunteers Platinum Status, their highest level of

recognition, signifying a superior level of transparency. In its first years, RCP

was funded by a generous family foundation, as well as many individual

donors, donor-advised funds, and hundreds of volunteers’ service program

contributions.

Rise Against Hunger, a US-based nonprofit, supplies prepackaged meals and

micronutrient supplements for RCP families and school children.

Revenue Expenses

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

In Africa, stunting is increasing. The World Health

Organization estimates 29% of all of children in Africa

are stunted, and the number of stunted children is

increasing. In rural Tanzania, up to 40% are stunted.

The World Bank estimates that 32% of children in Tanzania are stunted,

and in rural areas, the stunting rate is as high as 40%. This positions

Tanzania’s stunting rate in the top 15% of all countries worldwide.

WHY RCP?

The RCP Program can significantly decrease stunting in months vs.

decades. RCP is a child-focused, parent-driven, family-centered, and

community-led comprehensive approach. All components are

implemented and directed by local people with the assistance and

support of local staff and short-term volunteers. It is replicable and

scalable.

WHY NOW?

Stunting robs children of their future, steals trillions from the world

economy, and is totally preventable. However, it must be addressed

before a child’s second birthday. There is no time to waste. Every

child deserves the opportunity to reach their potential.

WHY TANZANIA?

RCP IMPACT REPORT SEPTEMBER 2020

Children have the undeniable right to reach

their full potential. You can help make the

difference. With funding from individuals and

foundations, Global Volunteers will expand the RCP

Program throughout Tanzania, across Africa, and

around the globe – wherever we are invited.

Stunting is tragic on a personal level, but that tragedy touches us all. With one

out of four of the world’s children stunted, we are squandering 25% of our

potential intellectual capital. We cannot afford to do that given all the challenges

facing our world today. Generational poverty, climate change, food insecurity,

pandemics, war, gender and racial inequality, and economic recessions require

all the brainpower we can muster now and well into the future.

UN agencies and other qualified organizations have completed the research

necessary to eliminate stunting. Parents want to improve their children’s lives.

With relevant knowledge, tools, support, and catalytic volunteer assistance, they

can ensure their children reach their God-given potential. That is good for

families, every country, and the planet.

The results reported herein were achieved before all the RCP Program

components and household technologies were in place. When parents have

access to additional knowledge and all the technologies, the stunting rate will

decrease substantially more. Together, we can eliminate stunting.

Global Volunteers knows how to do this. Parents want to do this. Everyone can

help. Every person has a role to play. We invite you to join us in this vital effort.

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Burnham Philbrook, JD

Co-Founder and CEO