Every year 5.9 million children under the age of five die worldwide. It is estimated that 70% of these deaths can be prevented with three things: access to clean water, basic health care and improved nutrition.

With an aim to reduce child mortality, SurfAid's work is focussed on these three things that have the greatest impact on reducing the number of children that die unnecessarily.

In Fadoro Lauru village, on the remote island of Nias, live husband and wife Yashokhi and Sitimani. They had three children, but sadly, the eldest died. To add to the tragedy, that death could have been prevented.

With little education and no previous heath knowledge, Sitimani was encouraged to bring her second child to SurfAid's community health post. At the health post, she learned many new health behaviours, including the importance of exclusively breastfeeding her children for the first six months of life – a behaviour she hadn't known about or practised with her first child.

Benefits associated with exclusive breastfeeding, such as provision of vital nutrients and the strengthening of the immune system, have made a real difference to Sitimani as their younger children rarely get sick.

Exclusive breastfeeding, combined with regular visits to SurfAid's community health post to monitor the health of their children, have helped their second and third children to grow up healthy and strong.

With the help of SurfAid supporters, the Mother and Child Health Program in Nias is having immense success. The breastfeeding rate has increased from 1% to 52%, and increased the community health post attendance rate from 14% to 85%. This means that Yashokhi and Sitimani are joined by other parents at the community health post where they gain education and support to raise healthy children; and these healthy behaviours will be passed on for future generations.

This project is led by SurfAid, and is funded through Australian Aid from the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).