The Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart
(SACH) has won the respected United Nations award for outstanding contributions to the world. SACH is an Israeli charity that provides life-saving treatment to children in less developed countries.
Each year, the Committee for the UN Population Award honours an individual or institution for outstanding contributions to issues of population and reproductive health and to their solutions. The award was established by the UN General Assembly in 1981 and was first presented in 1983. It consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a monetary prize.
SACH was founded in Israel in 1995 to improve the quality of paediatric cardiac care for children from low to lower-middle income countries. It has saved the lives of more than 4,700 children in 57 countries.
Thousands of children have been brought to Israel for heart surgery from countries where this medical care is unavailable. Over 50% of around 4,000 children who have received life-saving treatment live in Gaza and the West Bank, having been brought to Israel for the surgery together with their parents.
There are currently over 30 children from all over the World in recovery; children from Zanzibar, Romania, Tanzania, Ethiopia, the West Bank, Gaza, Fiji and Myanmar.
SACH has weekly clinics for Palestinian children, bringing some 20-30 children to the Wolfson centre in Jerusalem each week. Children from Gaza are accompanied by Palestinian doctors from Gaza, who are given the opportunity to work alongside Israeli doctors.
