Help us extend essential care across Tanzania

Dear Friends,

Just one week ago, you helped us raise over $5,000 with matching funds on GlobalGiving’s Bonus Day. That amount means 106 nurses in Tanzania will be trained and equipped to respond to emergencies with confidence and clinical expertise.

A skilled provider at the time of birth means a pregnant woman in Tanzania has a better opportunity to experience the joy of taking her healthy baby home. It means we can identify disabilities at birth, and refer a child born with an impairment, like cleft lip or clubfoot, for early treatment.

Together with the rest of the CCBRT team, I thank you for your generosity and support that has allowed us to do the work we do. It is gratifying to see our work over the last six years bear fruit and contribute to a significant improvement in the competency and confidence of the nurses trained. The decline in the number of maternal deaths in the region is encouraging and motivates us to persist in our efforts.

Every day, I see your impact with my own eyes, but what is unseen is the hope that invigorates the healthcare workers on the ground to know that people so far away care about them and the women and children they serve.

Meet my colleague Dorcas

Dorcas is our Senior Midwife Trainer for the team that will train those 106 nurses.

“I train medical teams in all 23 of our partner facilities,” she says. “I work to empower the maternal health teams with the mentoring, training and resources they need to save more lives.”

“One of these facilities serves 70,000 people every year. In 2011, my team performed an assessment to identify the facility’s quality of care. It scored 2% (perfection is a score of 100%¹). While staff were dedicated to helping mothers and babies, they did not have the equipment, tools, or skills to provide high-quality care to their patients.”

“Over the last six years we have worked closely with staff to collect data, find the gaps in equipment and skills, and identify the key challenges. We have tailored our training to address the root cause of the problem and teach the intervention needed to solve it.”

“In November 2015, this facility’s quality of care had improved to 87%. I was so proud. As the skills and confidence of service providers increased, so did the number of babies delivered safely to their families. In 2011, the facility delivered 406 babies. In 2015, the staff assisted with 1,386 deliveries, with zero maternal deaths.”

Friends, this is your generosity in action.

I’m so thankful to be on this journey with you. On behalf of Dorcas and my team here in Tanzania, thank you for making this life saving work possible.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brenda D’Mello. OB/GYN

1. Measured by Standards-Based Management and Recognition (SBMR) assessments, developed by Jhpiego, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University.

The Impact of Language & Respectful Storytelling.

As storytellers mobilizing support through compelling narratives, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to do so without jeopardizing the privacy or dignity of the people we serve.

On International Day to End Obstetric Fistula and for the past few weeks, we asked ourselves, and our partners, an important question:

How do we, as fundraisers, clinicians and global health advocates talk about fistula without imposing our own narrative and excluding women living with fistula from their own stories?

How do we talk about fistula?
Obstetric fistula is one of the hardest topics in global health to discuss. It is challenging to explain this invisible, relatively unknown condition without difficult details. Women living with this preventable, treatable disability are some of the most vulnerable women in the world. Each has survived a prolonged, obstructed labor, which could have killed them, only to survive with lifelong morbidities.

Women who survive obstructed labor often lose their baby. The babies that survive can suffer lifelong neurologic disease caused by reduced oxygen levels during labor. These babies may suffer paralysis and developmental deficits. In addition to the chronic incontinence that comes when a fistula develops, the women who survive this dangerous labor often experience foot drop, infertility, internal scarring that prevents normal sexual relations, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

When a woman returns home with a fistula she is constantly leaking urine, feces, or both. As a result, she will often face stigma and rejection from her own family and community. Every day, we see the devastating effects harsh words from misinformed family and community members have had on the women who receive free, comprehensive treatment from our sister organization in Tanzania, CCBRT.

“Some of [my neighbors] said having children caused this, others told me I was being cursed by witchcraft”. ~ Fadhila

“My step father influenced my young siblings by telling them that my condition was contagious and that they should keep away from me. They were always laughing at me.” ~ Mercy

Thanks to your support, and the support of partners, CCBRT Disability Hospital can provide counseling and therapy to address the emotional and psychological scars left by fistula. They also conduct national awareness raising campaigns to battle the misconceptions surrounding the condition. Coordinating one of the largest comprehensive fistula programs in the world, over 1,000 women were served through CCBRT’s program in 2016.

Fistula in her words
We asked twenty women and girls undergoing treatment at CCBRT how they identify themselves and prefer to be identified by others; they chose words like ‘mama’, ‘businesswoman’, ‘entrepreneur’.

Not one person we spoke to wanted to be thought of as a ‘patient’ or a ‘victim’ of obstetric fistula. The women and girls we serve do not want fistula to define them or their place in their community. As global storytellers, it is imperative that we tell these women and girls’ stories on their terms.

The power of an international platform
Kupona and our partners are in a privileged position, able to give a voice to women and girls who often struggle to make themselves heard even before they are faced with severe trauma. We are inspired by the strength and resilience of the women and girls we meet, and we strive to communicate that when we amplify their stories.

We reflect on this important issue in more detail in our latest blog post. Click here to hear the perspectives of our friends at Fistula Foundation, Johnson & Johnson and EngenderHealth. On International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, we also convened the #HerWords Twitter chat in partnership with CCBRT, Johnson & Johnson and Fistula Foundation. Check out the highlights from the conversation here on our Storify.