Helen Keller International

What problem is Helen Keller Intl working on?

Vitamin A strengthens vision, prevents blindness, and builds children’s immune systems so that they are strong enough to fight childhood illnesses like colds, flu, malaria, and diarrhoea. Without enough vitamin A, these routine illnesses can quickly end a child’s life.

In many countries, vitamin A is a natural part of diets. But for many families living in poverty around the world vitamin A-rich foods are not part of their regular diets. Sometimes they’re not available, but more often they’re too expensive for families.

GiveWell's best-guess estimate is that VAS supplementation in areas where vitamin A deficiency is common results in a ~4% - 12% reduction in childhood mortality, depending on location.

What does Helen Keller Intl do?

A single capsule of vitamin A given to children twice a year for the first five years of their lives can save their sight and lives, for only a little more than $1 per dose. Helen Keller Intl reports that, in 2023 alone, it helped deliver nearly 69 million vitamin A capsules to children under five.

As part of its vitamin A supplementation (VAS) programme, Helen Keller Intl:

• Distributes vitamin A supplements to children across Africa through door-to-door and fixed-site campaigns.
• Partners with local governments in low-income communities across Africa to facilitate VAS programme implementation, provide funding, and offer technical assistance (including helping with monitoring, training, and budgeting). To enhance impact, HKI's VAS campaigns often also include other complementary activities, such as deworming, health screenings, and/or immunisations.
• Advocates for mass VAS campaigns.
• Partners with local communities, governments, multilateral organisations, academic institutions, and the private sector to increase impact.

Why do we include Helen Keller Intl’s VAS programme on our list of recommended programs?

Helen Keller Intl's VAS programme is recommended by the impact-focused charity evaluator GiveWell, which we looked into as part of our evaluator investigations. We concluded that GiveWell’s recommendations are well-suited to helping donors maximise the impact of their “dollar” in the global health and wellbeing space. You can read our report on GiveWell here, and GiveWell’s extensive evaluation of Helen Keller Intl's VAS program, which highlights its cost-effectiveness, here.

Helen Keller Intl's VAS programme has been a GiveWell top charity since November 2017. Additionally, Open Philanthropy awarded a $9.7 million grant to Helen Keller Intl's VAS programme in 2020. Vitamin A supplementation has a strong evidence base, though GiveWell does express some uncertainty about current rates of Vitamin A deficiency in the areas Helen Keller Intl targets. Additionally, GiveWell supports Helen Keller Intl's mass distribution campaigns rather than its routine delivery programmes.