Healthcare to Save Mothers and Babies

It is difficult to imagine having no access to health care.   In the remote villages of North Darfur, there is no help within reach.     In the first village we adopted 16 years ago, a community of just over 2,000 people, called Um Ga’al, the nearest hospital was 80 miles away across desert scrub.  There were no roads.   The journey was so hazardous that people chose not to go, which meant that many problems spiralled out of control and people died needlessly.    But although the hospital had a doctor, it had no anaesthetic, no oxygen and beds were empty because people could not afford to pay medical fees.   Sixteen years later, little has changed although there are now two doctors in the hospital and Kids for Kids has provided basic medical equipment including a proper sterilising unit instead of the camping gas burner and metal tray they had used in 2001.   There are still no roads and without Kids for Kids mothers in labour would still have to go to hospital on the back of a donkey. 

Thankfully we have been providing two village midwives in each of our villages, transforming the health of both mothers and their babies.    Not only that, but we are now building Health Units and providing medical drugs.  

Nadia was one of the first midwives we trained.   In the first year she delivered over 800 healthy babies, and managed to persuade 14 mothers to go to the hospital in time to have caesarean sections when she realised, thanks to her training, that they were unlikely to be able to deliver their babies naturally.  

This year, thanks to our supporters, we are training ten new midwives in the five villages we are adopting in 2017.   At the village meetings when volunteers are democratically elected for training, Ahmed Adam, Sheikh of Absharback said “It is an honour for a lady to be chosen to be trained by Kids for Kids as our first midwife.   Perhaps our young women will no longer fear childbirth as they used to do.    I lost my first wife when she had our son and hope that now this will not happen to another child.    If only we had had our own midwives years ago.   Thank you Kids for Kids.”

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Childbirth is a terrifying ordeal when you live in a remote village in Darfur.   There is no health care other than in a rural hospital which is miles away across the desert.  There is no transport and no one has told you of the risks of FGM (female genital mutilation).   You are only 16 and this is your first child.   Most births are at night and there is no electricity so the women trying to help you light a fire for light in your straw hut.  The air is acrid with smoke.  Darfur is no place in which to give birth. 

When Kids for Kids' Founder, Patricia Parker MBE, first went to Darfur she was horrified to learn how dangerous childbirth was for women, and their unborn babies, and was determined to help.    Thanks to wonderful supporters Kids for Kids has now trained 268 village midwives.    But we must train many more so that girls do not live in fear.   We aim to train two midwives in every village so that there is always someone available to help.    Our midwives do all they can to teach mothers how dangerous FGM is and the success rate in stopping this harmful practise is remarkably high so that 98% of girls in our 82 Kids for Kids villagers refuse to have their daughters cut.    They teach post natal care so that babies have a better chance and, key success too, they are able to identify when a mother needs to get to hospital if there is a likelihood of a difficult birth.

The village leader of Hillat Kharif made a special journey recently to our small office in the regional capital to ask if he could enroll a volunteer to take the place of a trainee midwife who was unable to complete her training because of sickness as he was determined to do all he could to make sure the women in his village had the best possible care.  This was so important to him he walked for two days to reach our office. People are desperate for our help.

We share the cost of trainig with the State Ministry of Health in Darfur.   We provide each midwife with essential medical equipment, a uniform, leather sandals (rare in Darfur) and a fast strong donkey.  When we can we also build a two room Health Unit with a solar lantern - there is no electricity in any village - so that babies are no longer born in the flickering light of a fire and swirling smoke.   Please can you help us train more village midwives and save more mothers and their babies?   Together we can give a child a better start in life.  What is more important than healthcare?