Photo: Azaria Muhongya / Oxfam

Oxfam health worker Roger uses a handwashing station in Rwampara in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Oxfam health worker Roger uses a handwashing station in Rwampara in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Health and Education

To end poverty, free quality health care and education services are vital. It's a vicious circle: education massively improves girls' and boys' chances of escaping poverty – and poverty is the main reason they miss school. Meanwhile, high health care fees and too few hospitals and clinics make poverty worse, as illness affects people's ability to work.

What is Oxfam doing to help?

  • Children in white shirts with green ties in a classroom in Zimbabwe.

    We help people build and equip schools

    From bricks and mortar to books and management, helping schools get started is one of the first steps in ending poverty. Oxfam trains teachers, helps lobby local governments to get more children into school, and encourages communities to get girls into education.

  • A doctor talking to a nurse at the WASH facilities in Nasser Medical Complexes, Gaza.

    We work to improve standards of health care

    Low-cost clinics mean people can get the treatment they need, even in remote communities; while campaigning can bring free healthcare to mothers and children.

  • Students from Ingome school in Zvishavane District, Zimbabwe.

    We campaign for health and education for all

    We campaign internationally to make cheaper and better medicines available in developing countries. We also work with community leaders to lobby local governments to invest more in vital health services.

[Oxfam] aims to empower local authorities and leaders so that we can find a solution together.”

Roger works on Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Promoting health and education: what we've achieved

  • In 2010/11, we supported 25 schools across the Gao and Koulikoro regions of Mali.

    Working with our long-term local partners, we constructed and renovated school buildings, installed water points and latrines, trained teachers in modern, interactive teaching techniques, and helped set up school clubs, mothers’ associations and school committees.

  • Tiger worms are used to breakdown the waste in the latrine

    These worms save lives. Oxfam's Tiger Worm Toilets turn waste into fertiliser.

    We first started developing our amazing Tiger Worm toilets in 2013. The worms decompose the waste and turn it into clean, safe fertiliser. Which means better sanitation and fewer health problems for poor communities and refugee camps around the world. It's just one of the ingenious ways Oxfam is helping people escape poverty, for good.

  • Oxfam’s honey value chain project includes numeracy and literacy classes for women who have not had the opportunity to go to school or have had to leave school early.

    "I want [my children] to succeed. This adult education helped me..."

    Our 'Honey Supply Chain Project' includes business training as well as basic reading and writing skills for women like Alem, a beekeeper in Ethiopia. Projects like this demonstrate how women smallholder farmers can get good returns for their work, and take on leadership roles in their communities.

  • Nurse Tsitsi celebrates having running water for the first time at Somerton clinic in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe.

    Oxfam provided clean running water for the first time at Nurse Tsitsi's clinic in Zimbabwe

    Thanks to Oxfam's solar piped water system, the Somerton Clinic in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe now has access to clean, safe running water. Expectant mothers no longer have to bring their own water to the clinic.

  • Modeste Mirindi connects the bladder to the taps of the new water point of the Elim Church in Bimbo, Central African Republic.

    Water for 100,000 people in Central African Republic

    To help stop the spread of the coronavirus, our teams on the field are installing 20 temporary emergency water points in the Central African capital, which will be gradually replaced by 10 permanent boreholes, so that nearly 100,000 people will have access to clean water.

Mum's Magic Hands

A new initiative to encourage good handwashing practice developed by Oxfam and Unilever's Lifebuoy soap.

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