By Jenny Weaver and Karen Gryst | Director and CEO
To have a baby in Tigray Province is a wonderful moment for the birth of a child, but can also be a time of trepidation as it can be very difficult and dangerous without health services available. Without birthing kits women and babies are at risk of dying from simple infections like tetanus, but also the transmission of HIV is a very big issue.
Tigray Province in north western Ethiopia is very remote. In the wet season roads are cut and planes cannot land. What could be done to help the thousands of women in this inaccessible region who give birth at home?
The Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) started working with Abrahams Oasis delivering birthing kits to help these women. Every kit was “More valuable than gold” according to Ruth Kennedy a Director of Abrahams Oasis. It could save a life or prevent infection in this part of the world where medical help of any kind is rare.
The Birthing Kit Foundation supplied as many kits as possible but even this had its problems. Kits were held up at customs and nothing could be delivered in the wet season. The demand for this simple tool expanded too. Women started asking for ‘Kit Deliveries’ even in health facilities where cleanliness is far from ideal.
The solution, devised between Abrahams Oasis and the Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia), was for them to manufacture their own kits. Local women are employed in this project learning skills and earning much needed funds to help their families. Local production creates a consistent supply of kits throughout the year and now Abrahams Oasis can get the kits further into the remote areas of Tigray.
Abrahams Oasis has distributed clean delivery kits since 2010 and is now implementing local assembly of 15,000 kits. Thousands of deliveries are still done in homes and their goal is for each home delivery to be done on a clean sheet with gloves and clean gauze. In this way the work of Health Professionals at all levels is strengthened with a very basic but life-saving tool. The Clean Delivery Kits contain a large plastic sheet, soap, cord ties, razor blade, gauze and gloves.
Donations can ensure that this project is maintained and the supply of Clean Delivery Kits is maintained. Every US$50 means another 30 women have the chance of a clean birth free of infection and healthy baby.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
