The Challenge: How do we fight the growing burden of non-communicable disease worldwide?

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While many advances have been made to improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable groups around the world, there is still a great distance that we must go to meet the targets laid out in SDG 3. This goal includes indicators for reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health; infectious diseases; non-communicable diseases and mental health and health systems and funding.

Specific to SDG 3, AstraZeneca have focused their Lead2030 Challenge on SDG 3.4: to reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) through prevention and treatment and to promote mental health and well-being. 

NCDs have emerged to become the number one cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, killing more than 41 million people each year. While they disproportionately impact people living in vulnerable or compromised situations, they are an issue for people everywhere. 

Young people are most at risk and they are also the point of great opportunity to change the trajectory of disease. Yet young people are seldom on the global health agenda. 70% of premature deaths from NCDs can be linked to behaviours and habits that form in adolescence. Prevention becomes a critical tool to fight the burden of NCDs.

About Create Purpose

Edith Soria co-founded Create Purpose in Mexico in 2016 to provide transformative education for children in orphanages.

Create Purpose educates children through sustainable after-school education and child-centred development programmes.

Their mission is to empower abandoned children to reach their full potential in school and in personal development, creating sustainable and equitable community development. This is in order to break the cycle of poverty in Mexico where over 400,000 children are living without parental care and are at-risk of violence, human trafficking and exploitation.

As a part of their mission, Create Purpose promotes programmes including the prevention of non-communicable diseases in Orphans, and Vulnerable Children living in institutions in low-income, highly marginalised communities through a Caretaker Nutrition Program, and Garden-Based Learning Program. 

Lead203 will create vital input for the design and running of these programmes, giving both the children and their caretakers tools to make better informed decisions for their lives.