Maisha save a mother's life project in Dakwa Community

Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF) was at Dakwa Community in Bwari Area Council to give out maternity packs to women. The community as stated by the Health Secretariat Bwari Area Council is known to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality as the women still give birth at their homes. With support of gift vouchers from shoprite and kind donations from family and friends, TAAF was able to give pregnant women in Dakwa community maternity packs to encourage them visit the primary health facility in the community for professional care during pregnancy and after child birth. The event started with the assembling and registration of the women at about 10:30 am at the chief’s palace. This was followed by the welcoming of TAAF’s team by the chief of Dakwa community. He spoke how he was happy to receive us and gave us his full support to encourage women in the community promote safe motherhood.

Dr. Davianah a staff of TAAF talked to the women about the need to be registered with the primary health facility during pregnancy in other to have their history with the health facility and to ensure the safety of mother and baby during pregnancy and after child birth.

She also had similar sessions with the men present and advised them to ensure that their wives and sisters register with the health facility and go for antenatal checks to ensure that no life is lost during pregnancy and child birth.

Some of the challenges we had were:

Not all the women were willing to give their contacts; it will be difficult to follow up.

The number of women that showed up was more than the packs we had. We told them that we’d send more packs to the health facility. I’m hoping it’ll serve as a bait to draw them to the health facility. We couldn’t get some items like cord clamps, baby receiver, blades etc because of the limited funds we had. Language would have been a challenge but we had the head of the health facility present that was there to help us interpret.