Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!
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Following Up on Our Grant to MiracleFeet
Much of GiveWell’s grantmaking focuses on preventing child deaths. But many serious health challenges in low- and middle-income countries involve disability, not death. Disability treatment is an area we’ve considered for many years, but these interventions are often complex and require specialized research. As our capacity and expertise have grown, we’ve been able to evaluate and fund programs like clubfoot treatment.
Clubfoot is a congenital condition in which children are born with one or both feet twisted inward and downward. It affects roughly one in 800 newborns globally, and in low- and middle-income countries, only about a fifth of children who need treatment receive it. Left untreated, it causes pain and loss of mobility. But when treated early with the Ponseti method—which involves a series of casts, a minor outpatient surgical procedure, and four to five years of bracing—it can be fully corrected. In 2023, we made a grant to MiracleFeet, an organization that partners with local health facilities and ministries of health to expand access to clubfoot treatment in countries where most children go untreated.
A young patient holds her new foot braces. Photo credit: MiracleFeet
Two GiveWell staff recently traveled to Côte d’Ivoire to see the program firsthand. Over four days, they visited clinics, met with the Ministry of Health and implementing partners, and spoke with caregivers of children receiving clubfoot treatment.
“I have always known that the tangible impact of GiveWell’s work is that people are meaningfully helped out in the world; still, I was stunned by the experience of seeing actual, specific children—dozens of them—receiving transformative care.”
—Maggie Lloydhauser, Senior Philanthropy Advisor
In our latest podcast episode, CEO Elie Hassenfeld and Program Officer Meika Ball discuss what made this grant different from most we fund, what we’ve learned two and a half years in, and reflections Meika and Maggie recorded during their site visit.
Scrutinizing One of Our Longest-Funded Programs
Vitamin A supplementation is one of the programs GiveWell has supported the longest, and it has an unusually strong evidence base for reducing child mortality. Yet, as is the case for most global health programs, the evidence raises complex, unresolved questions. Over the last several