1000 Days of Motherhood

Next month we’ll be back in Zambia where Lifeline will be undertaking another distribution of Lifeplayers in the Eastern Province, in collaboration with the local Ministry of Education.  What’s so exciting about the next phase of this initiative is that while the pre-schoolers are listening to their interactive content, their mothers will have their own Lifeplayer, and be able to listen to the 1,000 Days of Motherhood content. 

In an urban area, children are at pre-school all day while their mothers are working.  By contrast, in rural areas mothers typically don’t work outside the home and instead of dropping children off and leaving, they wait. This is a great opportunity for mothers to learn, and provides an added incentive to bring their children to a pre-school.  

While these mothers love listening to content about health and nutrition, they also find content on farming skills and information useful, as most rural women are also farmers. Being part of a listening group affords mothers the opportunity to listen to some of the pre-recorded Farm Talk programmes from our other partner, COMACO, in addition to the 1,000 Days content. 

When we launched the 1,000 Days pilot project nearly two years ago, we didn't know what would happen, but hoped that it would grow. We’re delighted that the initiative has taken on a life of its own! More content is being created and further listening groups are starting. We're pleased that CARE Zambia has procured additional Lifeplayers in significant numbers to extend the programme into further rural listening groups.

Including other relevant educational content on topics such as farming and financial literacy only increases the impact that our Lifeplayers are having on the women we’re able to reach. We look forward to bringing you more stories and photographs after our visit to Zambia next month.