Improving maternal and child health through the delivery of proven nutrition interventions and strengthening health and food systems at scale by putting women and children at the center.
Stronger Together
Transforming Lives Through Nutrition is a consortium of impactful nonprofit organizations, including Helen Keller Intl, Vitamin Angels, and iDE, and has been established to offer an impactful way to improve the nutrition of underserved pregnant women, infants, and young children globally.
Collaboration is at the core of public health, and greater impact can be achieved through partnership. In this spirit, these three like-minded organizations have come together to amplify their collective impact, reach a larger audience, and tackle complex challenges more effectively than could be achieved individually.
About the Consortium Partners
The work of Transforming Lives Through Nutrition is designed and implemented by three nonprofit organizations that have come together, on an even playing field, to further enhance their ability to improve the lives of women and children across the world.
Guided by the remarkable legacy of its co-founder, Helen Keller, Helen Keller Intl partners with communities that are striving to overcome longstanding cycles of poverty. By delivering the essential building blocks of good health, sound nutrition and clear vision, the organization helps millions of people create lasting change in their own lives.
Vitamin Angels is a public health nonprofit working to improve nutrition worldwide. Vitamin Angels works directly with local and national organizations, including governments, to reach the most underserved, nutritionally vulnerable populations – pregnant women, infants, and young children – with evidence-based nutrition interventions and technical assistance.
iDE is a nonprofit that powers entrepreneurs to end poverty by unlocking the power of markets to solve development challenges, primarily in the areas of smallholder agriculture, circular economy, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).
Addressing Malnutrition: Women and Children at The Center
Globally, 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.1 This is particularly troubling for pregnant women and young children who are in critical stages of development and disproportionately impacted due to their increased nutritional needs.
Malnutrition can lead to higher rates of maternal and child mortality, increased susceptibility to diseases, and impaired physical and cognitive development. It also can lead to stunting, and 148.1 million children under five across the world are stunted (or too short for their age) because they have not had the nutrition they need for healthy growth, while 45 million children globally suffer from wasting (too thin for their age) the deadliest form of malnutrition.2 Gravely, malnutrition accounts for 45% of deaths of children under five globally.3
However, evidence-based nutrition interventions during these life stages can have a tremendous and positive impact, averting or addressing malnutrition and protecting women and children from morbidity and mortality. Effectively delivered nutrition solutions for pregnant women and young children can have lifelong impacts, improving educational outcomes, school performance, and future earning potential and breaking a cycle of poverty and poor health.
When Nutrition Matters Most
Improving nutrition at these critical life stages can break the cycle of poverty and poor health across generations.
Sources
1. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report 2024. 2. UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Group. Levels and trends in child malnutrition: Joint child malnutrition estimates 2023 edition. 3. 2021 Global Nutrition Report: The state of global nutrition. Bristol, UK: Development Initiatives.
Integrative Package of Interventions
- Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS) for Pregnant Women: MMS is a safe, affordable, and effective way to address micronutrient deficiencies in pregnancy and is proven to offer a significant and positive impact on pregnancy and birth outcomes.
- Vitamin A Supplementation and Deworming (VAS+D) for children under 5: VAS+D helps to build immunity, reduce illness, prevent blindness, and support optimal development and growth.
- Breastfeeding Promotion: Breastfeeding is proven to be one of the most effective ways to promote the health and survival of children and has health benefits for mothers as well.
- Infant and Young Child Feeding Promotion: In addition to breastfeeding interventions, we offer complementary feeding programs to support the introduction of nutritionally adequate and safe complementary (solid) foods at 6 months and continued breastfeeding up to 2 years of age or beyond, a period considered critical for healthy growth, development, and behavioral outcomes.
- Acute Malnutrition Screening and Treatment: Early nutrition screening can help identify people who are at risk for malnutrition or who already have it, which can lead to improved prevention and early intervention.
- Agricultural Production: Agriculture production interventions promote the growing of nutritious food and provide a supportive business environment for producers to deliver more, better, and safer foods.
- Supply Chain & Small Market Enterprise: The provision of climate-smart technology combined with business knowledge, access to finance, and connections to market ecosystems enable entrepreneurs to flourish and communities to thrive.
- Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH): WASH can have a significant impact on nutrition and safe WASH practices can avert diseases and infections that can impact the body’s ability to absorb nutrients including diarrhea, intestinal worms, and environmental enteric dysfunction, which can lead to undernutrition and stunting.
Where We Work
Reaching Underserved Populations Across Africa and Asia
- Bangladesh
- Cambodia
- DRC
- Ghana
- Kenya
- Mali
- Nepal
- Nigeria
- Philippines
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Zambia
Our Funder
Transforming Lives Through Nutrition is funded through the generosity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which regularly provides funding to nonprofit organizations impacting underserved populations around the world in an effort to care for those in need.
Learn More
Find out how Helen Keller Intl, Vitamin Angels, and iDE are working together to amplify our collective impact and reach a larger audience worldwide.