The Step Up Outreach community program identifies underserved community needs, develops health promotion and educational resources, and works to help improve health literacy, education and poverty in underserved communities. We work to expand our community partnerships and networks, to reach underserved communities by using  volunteerism, community activism, community leaders and the involvement of local businesses and corporate sponsors to build stronger and safer communities.

Poverty :

Poverty exist when people lack the means to meet their basic needs. Poverty has been associated, for example, with poor health, low levels of education, low income, or skills, an inability or an unwillingness to work, high rates of disruptive or disorderly behaviour, and improvidence. While these attributes have often been found to exist with poverty, their inclusion in a definition of poverty would tend to obscure the relation between them and the inability to provide for one’s basic needs. Whatever definition one uses, authorities and laypersons alike commonly assume that the effects of poverty are harmful to both individuals and society.

Cameroon and Liberia are country with large population of poverty with underserved communities.  Cameroon is a country of more than 23 million people. Out of the entire population, 24 percent of cameroonians live in poverty, and 55 percent of those in poverty live in rural communities.

 Liberia a country in West Africa with 4.61 million inhabitants is one of the least developed countries in the world. More than half of the population lives in poverty. Currently 38.4% of the population is food insecure, because of the country’s low agricultural production and poor household incomes, Liberia has suffered from chronic food insecurity. 25% of the population does not have access to drinking water, and just 17% have access to basic health services. Cameroon and Liberia is slowly on track to overcome poverty but ultimately needs more help. With financial assistance from other countries including the U.S and other international NGOs,

What are the causes of poverty in Africa? The main reasons are corruption and government conflict. Corruption in the government is the major epidemic, infiltrating many of the other sectors of society. According to Transparency International, low public sector salaries and a lack of decent training create the incentive for corruption

Health :

The leading causes of death in Africa is not diseases, but not having access to disease prevention and the resources to treat diseases.  Literacy creates Poverty, poverty creates hunger, and hunger, creates illness, illness causes death This is the cycle  of how one factor  affect he next. Without access to medicines, Africans are susceptible to the three big killer diseases on the continent: Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

 Globally, 50% of children under five who die of Pneumonia, Diarrhoea, Measles, HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria are in Africa, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO

In Africa, 22 million people live with HIV/AIDS, one child in five dies from malaria, one woman in sixteen dies during pregnancy or childbirth, and there are 750 thousand new cases of tuberculosis every year. Aid for Africa members are working to reduce HIV rates, protect mothers and children, provide medical supplies, and much more.

 Healthcare systems was already a dismal  and struggling then came the Ebola epidemic of 2014.  This  precipitated a prolonged economic crisis, which in turn created serious political and social tensions in these countries. and also proved that the health system was still too weak. Chronic malnutrition at 32 percent is among the highest in the world.

Finally, a decline in funding has reduced NGO resources, Although HIV and Ebola prevalence rates have declined, diarrheal diseases remain the second largest cause of death for children under five

In 2019, measures against hunger in screened and treating malnutrition in women and children and to improve their nutrition status through interventions at health centers and in communities  in partnership with the UNICF Action Against Hunger also continued at local and national levels.

Our team will work to improve access to clean water and safe sanitation and to prevent the spread of disease in rural areas through a number of activities, including building wells and latrines in underserved communities