Cambodia has significantly high rates of childhood malnutrition and maternal mortality, the result of years of war and civil unrest. To help improve pediatric health conditions in Cambodia, Direct Relief is partnering with Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) and the healthcare company Abbott and its foundation, the Abbott Fund, to support nutrition and education programs.

AHC is a pediatric teaching hospital in Siem Reap, Cambodia that provides free, quality healthcare services to impoverished children. AHC offers inpatient, outpatient, surgical, and HIV care at no cost, and also is a regional leader in training hundreds of Cambodian doctors and nurses every year at their Medical Education Center.

Direct Relief has partnered with AHC since 2006 and—through generous support from the Abbott Fund—AHC has developed a comprehensive nutrition education program to help families combat malnutrition and lead healthier lives.

Staff at AHC provides inpatient and outpatient education, and proper dietary and hygiene practices are taught to the children and their families who attend the hospital. By providing patients and their families with nutrition and health education, AHC strengthens not only the families’ ability to prevent malnutrition and disease, but also their communities’, as the families transfer the information they gain to their relatives and neighbors.

Since 2006, Direct Relief, Abbott and the Abbott Fund have helped AHC provide nutrition classes to over 12,000 families and nutritional assessments to over 600,000 Cambodian children. In addition, AHC has trained nearly 900 healthcare providers and government workers, who subsequently treated more than 125,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition.

As a direct result of AHC’s work, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian children are living happier, healthier lives. See the work in action in this video from AHC.