Helping Mothers and Children Survive and Thrive in Goro, Ethiopia
By improving reproductive, maternal and newborn health, through better home-care practices and access to quality health care services, more lives are being saved.
Women and Children First supported our partner Doctors with Africa CUAMM to establish 100 women’s health groups with funding from Comic Relief, the Big Lottery Fund and our supporters. This work has helped increase the number of safe deliveries by skilled birth attendants up by 13%, compared to the areas where no groups were running.
The women’s health group comes together to discuss ways of overcoming maternal and newborn health problems
The Problems and The Solutions
During 2017 in Ethiopia 1 in 243 births ended in a woman dying in pregnancy, childbirth or shortly after birth. In the UK it’s 1 in 10,000. Women in the most rural and remote communities, such as Goro Woreda, are at greatest risk.
To save lives and improve health, 100 women’s groups were created. These identify the most pressing health problems and find answers to overcome them. Over 3 years 18,276 women and men have benefitted.
Women and Children First provided Technical Assistance to our partner, Doctors with Africa CUAMM. We offered long-term support in designing, implementing, managing and evaluating the success of the women’s health groups.
Women’s Stories
Together, women and the communities, empowered by the groups, have raised awareness of the importance of skilled delivery to ensure more women and children can survive and thrive. Rabiya and Zebiba’s stories below highlight this.
Rabiya with her baby daughter, Fedila
Rabiya’s Story: At Risk of Haemorrhage
Haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death for women. After many hours at the health facility and with her labour progressing too slowly, alarm bells rang.
Rabiya knew from the advice shared in in her group that she and her baby were at risk. Taking control, she asked to be taken to hospital. Her little girl Fedila was delivered safely.
Zebiba with her son, daughter and newborn baby
Zebiba’s Story: “My baby struggled to breathe”
Zebiba’s baby received the treatment they needed, thanks to giving birth at the local health centre. “The midwives saved my child’s life.”
Zebiba talks about how she leads her women’s health group, the advantages of delivery in a health centre over traditionally preferred home births and the importance of postnatal care.
Finding Effective Solutions to Pressing Health Problems
Women and the communities addressed major health problems, thanks to the groups. Most prioritised problems were malaria, diarrhoea and complications during labour. Each story below highlights how the groups have taken action to address the problems.
Improving the flow of a local water source
Malaria
Women’s health groups came up with solutions including improved access and use of bed nets, removing mosquito breeding sites and awareness raising.
A community pit latrine is built
Diarrhoea
Groups helped through building and developing latrines, giving people personal and household hygiene advice and increasing knowledge of treatment.
A stretcher, used to help women get to hospital
Complications in labour
Together, the groups encouraged increased uptake of antenatal care services, use of skilled birth attendants and improved access to health centres.
Results and Key Achievements
In addition to the results mentioned above, data collected from health facilities, we also achieved:
12% increase in diagnosis of malaria cases, enabling more women and children to get the treatment they need.
61% increase in diarrhoea treatment and 15% increase in pneumonia treatment among children under 5, ensuring children are safer and healthier.
345 Health Development Army leaders trained on maternal health support in the community; 13 Community Health Workers trained on Youth and Adolescent friendly health care services; 33 Community Health Workers trained on community based management of newborn and childhood illness - in turn supporting thousands of women throughout the Woreda.
Furthermore, 4 health centres have received medical equipment, supplies and drugs and 4 motorbikes have been purchased to ensure the community has the support and access to supplies and services it needs.
Supporting the community through coronavirus, including training rapid response team members, Lab technicians on sample collecting, providing PPE, thermometers and pedal-powered hand-washing facilities to 22 health centres.
This is sustainable. Our evidence shows that 80% of women’s health groups continue to run after projects come to an end.
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