Healthcare to Save Mothers and Babies

We are so grateful to everyone who has donated through GlobalGiving's generous Little by Little campaign this week!

So far you lovely lot have donated a fabulous $2078.40 (£1,644.03) since Monday!

This means that with their Little by Little campaign, GlobalGiving will kindly match these donations by 50%, so in total you have helped us raise a wonderful $3,117.60 (£2,466.05).

That's more than enough to help us train a Midwife in Darfur! 

With hospitals out of action as war still rages, our trained Midwives are saving the lives of mothers, babies, children and whole communities.

But, in order that they can help cover for each other, day and night, we always need to train TWO MIDWIVES in each of our villages.

To train one Midwife costs us $2,500 (£2,000).

So to train two Midwives, that's a total of $5,000 (£4,000), It would be wonderful to reach that this week!

This means we just need additional donations of $1,255 (£1,022.64). With the power of the crowd we can achieve this - little by little!

If you haven't yet donated, please could you help us reach this goal and raise enough for ONE MORE MIDWIFE?

Donate just $50 (£40) by midnight this Friday (22nd September) and we will receive an extra $25 (£20) completely free from GlobalGiving!


Please help us train another Midwife to save lives by donating this week. Thanks to GlobalGiving, you really can help us change the world Little by Little!

Thanks to your generosity, Kids for Kids has been training midwives, not only in the 110 Kids for Kids’ villages but across the whole of North Darfur.

There are over 500 Kids for Kids midwives working in villages with no other health care. 

They are saving lives.  Violence has erupted across the country.   People cannot travel and hospitals are not functioning properly - our midwives could not be more needed. They are helping to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates, and they are providing desperately needed support to women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period.

With the current situation, Midwives in remote villages in Darfur are more urgently needed now than ever.

There is no health care in villages.

The few rural hospitals are not only struggling with those injured in the fighting, they are short of medicines – short of everything. The danger of travelling anywhere in Darfur is endangering the lives of expectant mothers.

Can anything be done?

It is known that many babies have been born prematurely in Khartoum since the fighting, but with virtually all hospitals under attack from indiscriminate shelling by the warring forces, mothers in labour are at great risk.

According to the UN, an estimated 219,000 women are currently pregnant in Khartoum alone, including 24,000 women expected to give birth in the coming weeks. It is not known how many face childbirth out of sight in Darfur.   With intermittent electricity in the capital more than 50 new born babies died in one week alone.  It is not known how many have died without proper health care in Darfur.

With your support, we can train and support midwives where they are most needed.

It costs £2000 to train a midwife in Darfur, including medical kit, uniform and leather sandals.  Would you be able to contribute towards this cost please?

We also provide strong fast donkeys – the only transport in remote villages - £250 – and a solar lantern - £75.

Your support and donations towards our Healthcare projects in Darfur has made a huge difference.  Thank you so very much.  We are enormously grateful..

But not as grateful as Limon, a young mother who lives in Matway, a village we adopted in 2018.

Limon is 35 years old, married and bringing up 6 children.

Limon was chosen by the Animal Loan Committee in Matway to receive a Kids for Kids' Goat Loan for many reasons.

Her family was very poor. They only had a straw hut which they called home but no other belongings.

In 2018, Limon received 5 goats, one local breed donkey, two blankets and two mosquito nets from Kids for Kids.

These mosquito nets have a very fine mesh so help protect the children from spread of diseases carried by sand flies as well as mosquitos . 

In Darfur, there were floods in August 2022. There was no spraying of standing water, and mosquitos have swarmed. In the hospital there are 4 children in every bed, suffering from malaria. It's still the biggest killer in Africa. Half of those children will die, because they are too malnourished to fight the disease.  

Mosquitoes in Africa also carry dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever – all deadly. These mosquito nets offer  protection but cannot prevent the children being bitten during the day.

Limon cares for her goats, preparing shade and dry hay to keep them well-fed. She has managed to grow her flock to 20 goats and was then able to repay her Goat Loan by passing on 5 healthy nanny goats to another familly to benefit.

Nanny goats provide protein-rich milk to strengthen Limon's malnourished children, warding off starvation, and she is able to sell some of her Billy goats to help give her an income.

Limon says "The sale of my Billy goats allowed me to purchase agricultural equipment and prepare my children for school by buying school clothes and books. Not only that, but it has allowed me to pay for my children's treatment when they caught flu and malaria. It was a terrible time for us."

Limon's goats have literally saved her children's lives.

And that's all thanks to you!

Could you help us support more families like Limon's by donating to our Healthcare project?

We know times are tough for us all right now but imagine being helpless and not knowing if your child will live or die? 

We promise to provide many more mosquito nets to protect children, goats to ward off starvation and much more!

Thank you so much for your kind generosity and consideration.    Our health care projects include the training of village midwives and of first aid workers.  There is no other health care available in villages.  

The North Darfur Ministry of Health recently registered a staggering 4,500 cases of malaria last week.

And children under 5 are most at risk.

The number of cases is a big jump compared to last year and the Ministry have put in place many health precautions, including a spraying campaign for the city of El Fasher, in addition to filling up ponds and swamps, calling on citizens to take precautions, cover pots, and chlorinate water to avoid the spread of the malaria, hepaticis C virus and other fevers associated with autumn. These include dengue fever, chincinguna and yellow fever.   All deadly.  

Kids for Kids has been providing mosquito nets for the poorest families every year.   Not only do we give them to the families in the villages we adopt each year, but also to all those villages who have asked us to adopt them.  This year we provided over 3,000 nets - all big enough to protect four sleeping children.   "I have been told that by providing nets not only have we cut the incidence of malaria by two thirds in villages but we are protecting them from being bitten by the tiny sand flies which spread diseases including vomiting and diarrhoea.  Little ones can succumb from even these when they are weakened by a lack of food" said Patricia Parker OBE, Founder of Kids for Kids.  "It is so important to prevent illness when there is virtually no health care available." 

You can also help reduce the spread of malaria too!

2 mosquito nets cost just £18 and give children vital protection from malaria.  It is still the biggest killer in Africa

Please can you donate 2 Mosquito Nets today to help us save children's lives?  Please also tell people we really can make a difference. 

We are so proud of all the Village Midwives we have trained over the years.

Not only do they help mothers and babies in their own village but they also travel to surrounding villages to save lives.  Can you imagine what it is like to have NO health care whatsoever within reach.  The best people can do in Darfur is to go by donkey - the only transport - to a rural hospital miles away where help is limited - to say the least.   "I visited the hospital at Mellit recently" said Patricia Parker OBE, our Founder.  "There was no oxygen, the operating theatres had mould on the ceilings, and virtually no equipment.   People have to pay for their drugs, their food and even bring their own bed covering."    Our trained village midwives do far more than deliver babies. They advise on feeding, post and natal care, and convince mothers not to undergo FGM and, even more important, not to put their daughters through this terrible practise.   Patricia says "I am so proud of our midwives.  If we did not do anything else, funding these wonderful women is a life changer."

This year, Kids for Kids has adopted 5 new villages, including Hillat Um Gadeer, which is 55 kilometers north east of the capital, El Fasher.

Fatima lives in Hillat Um Gadeer. She is 36 years old, married and bringing up 6 children - 4 boys and 2 girls.

Fatima's husband, Khalil, is a farmer and they live a miserable life of subsistence and dire need. They are missing out on the basic necessities of life.

During the last rainy season, the family's millet crop failed and they were only able to harvest one sack of sorghum, together with a few okra and watermelon.

Can you imagine? This just isn't enough for a family to survive on.

Fatima is also 6 months pregnant. 

Luckily, the village of Kerkra which Kids for Kids adopted in 2009 is close by. And there are two trained midwives there.

One of those midwives was able to travel on her fast crossbred donkey provided by Kids for Kids to see Fatima in her village, carry out observations and advise Fatima that her baby is in an abnormal foetal position.

Childbirth in this situation would be very risky - for both mother and baby.

To save both Fatima and her baby's lives, the midwife advised that Fatima should be transferred to El Fasher for treatment. Without this expert advice Fatima and her baby would have been at great risk.

Fatima now travels the 55 kilometers to El Fasher once a month to meet the Obstetrician and Gynecologist who monitor her baby's progress and will help deliver her baby safely.

You have helped us train these midwives - thank you!

Because of you, Fatima's delivery will be much smoother.

Because of you, Fatima and her baby are much more likely to survive labour.    Her other children will not lost their mother.

Sadly, there are many mothers and babies in Darfur who are not as lucky as Fatima; mothers who do not have access to trained midwives who can spot abnormalities like this. 

We need your help to train many more midwives to help many more mothers just like Fatima.

Please could you donate today to help us save the lives of both mothers and babies?

A midwife to give mothers and children a chance | Kids For Kids

Or could you donate a solar lantern to help midwives treat mothers at night? - Solar Lantern | Kids For Kids

Or please do donate to the Greatest Need and we will be sure your donation makes a difference where it is needed most - Donation for the Greatest Need | Kids For Kids

Every little counts when lives are at risk. Thank you so much for your support.