Supporting children's health in Benin and Togo

In Benin and Togo, UN Volunteers with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) support access to health, education, and better living conditions for children. Ahouéfa Fernande Agossou, Rose Koudori Tao, and Mawouli Aimée Van-Lare are three people behind this support.

Ahouéfa Agossou is from Benin. She is a UN Volunteer Community Health Specialist with UNICEF and has helped children and pregnant women in 12 municipalities of her native country by organizing training and awareness campaigns on good health and well-being. She mobilized community health workers and adapted messaging that resonated with the community members. 

Seeing community health workers enhance their skills and support their communities has been my greatest satisfaction." Ahouéfa Agossou, UN Volunteer Community Health Specialist with UNICEF in Benin reflects on her volunteer assignment.

Rose Koudori Tao is from Chad. She is UN Volunteer Specialist in Emergency Education in Benin and has helped over 6,000 children including refugees and girls from underprivileged areas, access education between 2022 and 2023. Rose established child-friendly spaces, distributed school kits, and introduced digital learning tools in the Borgou and Alibori regions.

She also helped train 5,000 young peer educators, of which 3,152 were girls, to promote education and social cohesion in their communities, while integrating Islamic religious schools into the national education system. A fifth-grade student, Garba Aliyatou shared, "I dream of seeing every girl succeed in school. Thanks to Rose, I believe in myself and want to inspire my peers." Garba is also a member of peer educators in the Borgou department.

In Togo, 59-year-old Mawouli Aimée Van-Lare is a UN Volunteer Community Health Specialist with UNICEF and works on care for sick children through the Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) approach. This year, she helped train 2,056 community health workers in her native Togo's Kara and Savanes regions over three months. The training benefitted over 115,000 children who received treatment for illnesses like pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria.

Through the Child-Friendly Community and Real-Time Monitoring CADE/STR project, Mawouli introduced digital tools for real-time health monitoring, which also supported practices like birth registration. As a result, 72,503 children were tested for malaria, with 34,279 treated for confirmed cases; 11,772 home visits provided newborn care and nutritional advice, and 2,012 cases of severe acute malnutrition were referred for treatment.

Ahouéfa, Rose and Mawouli highlight how volunteering connects local government services to communities. They support the mandate of UNICEF so children are protected, and can access opportunities for good health and education—particularly focusing on the children left behind by wider economic and social progress.