Healthcare to Save Mothers and Babies

Our village midwives are an asset which is highly prized by the women in our villages in Darfur. To us it is unimaginable that women in Darfur face pregnancy and childbirth without having any trained person on hand to provide advice and guidance and as a consequence any problems encountered frequently result in the loss of the baby and in many cases also the death of the mother. All this changes when Kids for Kids adopts a village and trains two women as village midwives who provide regular ante-natal check-ups snd are able to detect potential problems and take appropriate action. It is no wonder that women value them so highly. One of the many village midwives we have funded delivered 120 babies in two remote villages in the 28 months since she had graduated. Moreover, she had arranged for 5 pregnant women facing complications to undertake the long journey to hospital in time to deliver their babies safely - without her skill the outcome is likely to have been very different. Although our midwives have to rely on the speedy cross bred donkey which we provide to reach their clients, we have provided them with 21st century technology in the form of a mobile phone which enables them to be able to contact the local hospital for advice and for referrals of women facing complications. Our last batch of village midwives graduated in March and we are still awaiting a report from the Ministry of Health on the performance of all the midwives we have trained before going ahead with the next training course.  We already have the trainees identified - some from the three new villages which we adopted in 2013 and others fill gaps in our established villages where a midwife may, for example, have left the area on marriage. We are also still in discussion with the Ministry of Health about the possibility of Kids for Kids funding a second Midwifes Training School in Mellit.

The women who graduated as village midwives three months ago are now settling into their new role in their villages. They have now purchased their cross bred donkeys giving them the necessary mobility to be able to reach any women with problems during child birth very quickly. This is of immense importance in contributing to saving lives.  The women in the six new villages having the services of a trained village midwife for the first time are particularly happy knowing that they now have expert advice on hand in the village if they encounter problems during pregnancy and childbirth. For the first time they also have the benefit of regular ante-natal checks which enable potential difficulties to be detected early. These services are so vital and appreciated by the women as maternal mortality in the villages in Darfur is very high and our village midwives save many lives. Your support makes all this possible and the peace of mind which you give to the women in Darfur is a precious and priceless gift.

Overall, the value of the trained midwives has become apparent in recent months. Malnutrition is currently rife in the villages in Darfur as soaring inflation has meant that families cannot affort to feed their children. However, there is no malnutrition in Kids for Kids villages and the midwives have played a major part in this providing sound advice to mothers on how to feed their children in the difficult circumstances. The loan of 6 goats by Kids for Kids to the porest families has also played has been another factor pro viding nutrient rich milk to the poorest families.

We are currently in discussion with the Ministry of Health about the next training course for village midwives which we hope to start during the next few months but the process is stalled at present as we area awaiting reports from the Ministry of Health on the activities and performance of the village midwives which form a part of our contract with the Ministry of Health.  We are also awaiting a decision on our offer to at least part share the cost of the construction of a second MIdwifery Training School in the north of Darfur.