Over 30 community health workers， county health directors， senior health ministry officials and programme staff are field testing the new World Health Organization / UNICEF handbook on new born and child care. The three-day workshop is facilitated by experts from UNICEF， WHO and Save the Children.

The workshop will educate participants on effective health practices on newborn and child care that they can put in place in their own communities in Liberia. At the end of the workshop， participants will develop a plan to implement practices learned during the workshop such as umbilical cord care and kangaroo mother care.

Speaking at the inaugural session， UNICEF Representative Sheldon Yett said that skilled and empowered frontline health workers were key to delivering life-saving health care services for new born and children in deprived and hard to reach areas.

“Equity needs to be the heart of what we are doing. We need to be doing more to reach the most vulnerable communities and ensure that members in the communities have access to better new born and child care，” he said.

Mr. Yett added that despite Liberia achieving the fastest U5 child mortality reduction rate in Africa， over 12，000 children die every year mostly from preventable and treatable diseases such as malaria， acute respiratory illnesses and diarrhoea.

“Thirty two children die every day from preventable diseases. These children might have been with us today if they received basic and timely health interventions，” he said， adding that malnutrition is the underlying cause for one-third of all child deaths in Liberia.

“The handbook will be very useful for us to train general community health volunteers in new born care at the community level and to disseminate essential nutritional messages among communities for proper growth and development of children，” said Netus Nowine， county health director from Grand Gedeh county. He added that the handbooks will contribute to further strengthening iCCM interventions in the communities.

UNICEF Liberia is supporting the government to implement high impact and low-cost health interventions especially in the most difficult to reach population in impoverished South East Liberia.