Supermodel Karen Elson calls on world leaders to help end preventable child deaths

Laura Proto17 September 2015

A supermodel travelled to the Ivory Coast as part of a charity mission to end preventable child deaths.

Karen Elson visited the west African country with Save the Children to meet with mothers whose children are dying from curable illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Ms Elson, who is a mother of two, saw first-hand the conditions children face when they become ill and spoke with mothers who had lost several children from ailments which are easily treatable back home.

The 36-year-old supermodel said: “To look at a mother who has lost her child from a disease that can be vaccinated against is very tragic.

“I saw the reality here and the reality is that kids die from illnesses we can prevent.

Supermodel Karen Elson during her visit to Cofe D'Ivoire
Save the Children

“All I can do now is convey how necessary Save the Children’s work is; they really do help, they really do change things and I can’t wait to tell people what I saw in order to make sure that no child is born to die.”

Ms Elson travelled to Cote D’Ivoire ahead of a UN Summit in New York on September 25 in which Save the Children will call on world leaders to set a goal to end preventable child deaths by 2030.

To sign a public petition, visit savethechildren.org.uk.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in