Alcatel-Lucent Foundation provides two-year funding grant to support training of young women for Pesinet’s child healthcare monitoring program in Mali

The Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Alcatel-Lucent , has provided a two-year US$60,000 grant to support the development of Pesinet’s child healthcare monitoring program in Mali.  Pesinet is a community health organization dedicated to improving the health of young children from low-income families in Mali while providing training and job opportunities for young women.

Pesinet relies on young women hired and trained to visit families to check on the health of young children and their families in their communities.  Their duties include weighing infants to monitor their growth and ensure they are getting the nutrition they need to become healthy children as well as performing regular health check-ups for children under 5 years old in low-income communities.

The Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, which emphasizes support for education and training programs, in particular for girls and young women from disadvantaged areas, will provide funding to support the development of the training program for the Pesinet health workers, and the creation of new jobs for young women in the zones covered by the service. “I would like to thank Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation for their trust and support for the development of our program,” said Anne Roos-Weil, co founder and CEO of Pesinet. “This grant from the Foundation will enable us to implement an ambitious program to increase the impact of our field projects to ensure the health of more children in Mali. I am also excited that in addition to the financial support provided by the Foundation, Alcatel-Lucent employees in Senegal are volunteering to be involved in the professional mentoring of our program coordinator based in Mali, giving us some new perspectives on how we might better achieve our goals.”

Job opportunities for young people, and especially young women, are limited in Mali and they suffer from high rates of unemployment and underemployment.  In addition to providing young women a stable and formal job, those hired by the Pesinet program are provided training in professional health skills by the doctor of the local partnering healthcare center and can develop marketing skills as ambassadors of the service among families. They play a key role in educating and raising awareness of disease prevention and the importance of medical care for young children  and are recognized in their communities for their know-how.

“We are proud to support a project that will help improve the health of young children in Mali and create economic opportunities for young women by helping them develop new skills and empowering them as knowledgeable professionals in their communities and health ambassador for children,” said Béatrice Tassot, Executive Director of the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation.”

For more information on Alcatel-Lucent Foundation: http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/foundation/