Action For Health : Empowering Communities in Mali

We often talk about training and equipping our wonderful community health workers, but have you ever wondered exactly what equipment they need to do their work?

Every Mali Health community health worker carries a backpack, which contains some important equipment that helps them monitor the health of the children in their care. Here's what they use:

• Scale - to measure children's weight and track their growth
• Brachial or MUAC (mid-upper arm circumference) tape - to measure arm circumference, which more accurately screen for acute malnutrition
• Digital thermometer - to measure body temperature and catch early signs of a fever
• Smartphone - our community health workers record all the anthropometric measurements into the mHealth app we use to monitor and track children's health information

Not only is this equipment essential for doing their job - it helps our community health workers take pride in what they do. In addition to their backpack, you'll also notice that our health workers often wear a Mali Health vest - their uniform. Both the backpack and the vest makes them more visible in their communities and helps community members and health workers recognize the professionalism, and importance, of their work.

All of your contributions through GlobalGiving goes to train, equip and support Mali Health's community health workers. They are pivotal to improving maternal and child health in the peri-urban communities we serve. Despite very high maternal and child mortality rates in Mali, Mali Health community health workers have not lost a single mother or child in their care in five years.

In our last project update, we followed one of Mali Health's community health workers, Gauanse, on her daily visits to families in her care.

We'd like to show you a bit more of where Gauanse and our other community health workers diligently visit mothers and children everyday - in Bamako's peri-urban communities. For the most part, peri-urban communities are informally settled and lack access to basic services.

Navigating some of these communities can be challenging - but Gauanse and her colleagues make it look easy. Community conditions not only makes the work of community health workers more important, but make us appreciate them, and their hard work and dedication, even more.

It is your support that makes their work to serve mothers and children in Bamako's peri-urban communities possible. Thank you so much!

Take look below to see where Gauanse's work takes her everyday:

Links:

• Follow Gauanse for a day