Dear Friends,
What a week! There has been an amazing show of support for women worldwide over the last several days.
Kupona was featured at the ACCP conference in Nashville, TN. Our friends at Johnson & Johnson presented our latest video, highlighting our efforts, in partnership with CCBRT, to prevent and treat obstetric fistula in Tanzania. You can take a look here.
People Who Inspire
We also highlighted just a handful of women that inspire us on our blog – launching a regular feature to shine a spotlight on ordinary people doing extraordinary things for people in Tanzania.
Every donation you make is an extraordinary thing. Your support allows us to continue to improve the status quo for thousands of women, and make quality maternal healthcare accessible for all in Tanzania.
Will you be the next person to be featured on our ‘People Who Inspire’ blog series?
Mark your calendars! GlobalGiving’s first Bonus Day of 2015 is this Wednesday, March 18th, beginning at 9am EDT. Until midnight, all donations made through our GlobalGiving page will receive a 30% match (up to $1,000 per donor, until matching funds run out).
Your gift goes further this Wednesday!
With gratitude,
Abbey
Dear Friends,
Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the incredible progress that you are making happen for women in Tanzania. With GlobalGiving’s first matching gift campaign of the year coming up in just 10 days, it’s also a great time to remind ourselves to keep pushing for the changes that we know are possible.
Meet Esther
Esther arrived at the health center in Tanga, Tanzania, as a 24-year-old expectant mother and businesswoman, with a supportive family and a bright future. She returned home with a healthy baby, but also a devastating condition that threatened to diminish that future. Obstetric fistula.
After a grueling 12-hour obstructed delivery staff at the Tanga health center were able to deliver Esther’s baby safely, but the damage to Esther’s body had already been done.
Five days after returning home, Esther noticed she was leaking urine.
Learning to Live with Fistula
“After I developed fistula, I stayed at home with my parents. I was very sad that I could not go to any celebrations or to see my neighbors because I would be ashamed for anyone to see my leaking.”
“Before I had fistula, I owned a cosmetic shop. After my baby was born, I could not go back…I had spent the money that I would need to purchase more supplies for my business on my health and fistula expenses.”
Esther lived with fistula for seven months. Finally, a doctor told her about our local implementing partner, CCBRT, where her condition could be treated. After a 200 mile journey, Esther was admitted for fistula repair surgery.
Esther’s surgery was successful, and she is now recovering, pain-free. She is happy to be completely dry, and to have her beautiful, healthy son. She will soon return home to her family and community.
A stark reminder
Esther’s story is one of survival and hope. High quality fistula treatment is available free of charge at CCBRT. Since the program began, thousands of women have had their dignity restored through surgery. With Kupona’s support, CCBRT has become one of the largest fistula treatment centers in the world.
The thing is, Esther’s story never should have happened.
Prevention is better than cure
Fistula is completely preventable, yet every year, there are up to 3,000 new cases of fistula in Tanzania. High quality, emergency obstetric care would have spared Esther the trauma of living with incontinence.
Your donations to Kupona have taken us one step closer toward eradicating this condition from Tanzania. Your support has helped us to take huge bounds toward improving the quality of maternal and newborn healthcare in some of the most under-resourced health facilities in the region of Dar es Salaam. It has also helped us make incredible progress on the construction of a new Maternity and Newborn Hospital – a hospital that will focus specifically on high-risk deliveries and women with a history of obstetric fistula, like Esther, who are particularly vulnerable to complications in future pregnancies.
We’ve still got a long way to go
In 10 days, GlobalGiving will launch its first Bonus Day of the year, giving you the opportunity to increase the impact of your donation. Donate on March 18th beginning at 9am EDT and your donation will receive a 30% match from GlobalGiving! So please, mark your calendars, and help us to prevent more women from facing the devastation of fistula.
Thank you for your continued support, and Happy International Women’s Day!
Abbey
Dear Friend,
Our final fundraising efforts of 2014 have come to an end. In the last six weeks alone, our Global Giving supporters raised $3,264 for mothers and babies in Tanzania. Your donations are helping us make motherhood safe and prevent unnecessary impairments and loss of life. Thank you.
$3,264 will give 59 mothers and babies a better chance of survival!
Your generous donations this holiday season, along with our corporate and institutional supporters, contributed to a total of $564,900 raised by Kupona in 2014!
A record amount raised means a record number of lives changed.
In 2015, we resolve to bring you more stories from the field so that you can continue to celebrate the victories that you are making possible. I look forward to sharing regular updates and giving you more opportunities to get involved. Your donations have a life-changing impact on some of the most vulnerable people in Tanzania. We’re going to help you see that impact.
Wishing you all a wonderful start to 2015,
Abbey
Dear Friends,
Happy Holidays! We’ve enjoyed celebrating little victories this month, and we hope you’ve been inspired by the stories you’ve heard, whether on our blog or via social media.
Tomorrow is your last day to help us win $3,000 from GlobalGiving. A tax-deductible donation of $55 USD made via our GlobalGiving project page by midnight on December 31st will directly support women like Janeth and our maternity and newborn healthcare program. (It’s also your last chance to make a donation for the 2014 tax year!)
In this video, Fabiola, Haika, Faridu and other members of the CCBRT team share their thoughts on what makes CCBRT different from other health service providers. If you can spare just 54 seconds, their answers may surprise you!
Your gift enables these dedicated professionals to change lives every day. Kupona Foundation has an exclusive relationship with CCBRT, so the funds you give aren’t sent anywhere else. CCBRT’s doctors and nurses are the people who translate your donations into impact for our patients.
Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to sharing more reports of our successes and challenges in 2015. And, with your help, we look forward to celebrating many more victories for the people of Tanzania. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!
With gratitude,
Abbey
Dear Friends,
When we talk about maternal healthcare, it’s easy to get lost in the statistics. And when statistics don't tell us what we’d like to hear it’s easy to get disheartened. Every year, 8,000 Tanzanian women will die as a result of childbirth or pregnancy related causes.[1] It’s true that we are still a long way from reaching our goals in the reduction of maternal mortality in Tanzania (we have 12 months to reduce the maternal mortality rate by 57% to meet the MDGs[2]).
But positive change is happening. And it’s all thanks to you. We’re here to remind you of the victories.
This September, there was incredible news from Temeke District Hospital, one of the 22 facilities that we support through CCBRT’s capacity building program in Dar es Salaam. Temeke Hospital has historically had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the region. However, following the incredible work of the CCBRT team, Temeke reported zero maternal deaths in the month of September.
In a region where far too many mothers lose their lives in childbirth, this news was remarkable Thanks to the staff training, infrastructure improvements, and distribution of life-saving equipment that YOU supported, every mother who gave birth at Temeke in the month of September survived.
“At first, I used to get disappointed when I didn't get the results I wanted immediately, but then I realized that the one person you save means something…CCBRT has showed me that change is possible.”
- Dr Fatma Sulieman, OBGYN and technical advisor, CCBRT’s Maternal and Newborn Healthcare Program
Of course, not every month will be as successful as September. Without collaboration and perseverance, thousands of Tanzanian mothers and their babies will continue to die every year. We must build upon this year’s successes by enabling the teams on the ground to continue improving the skills of healthcare providers; ensuring that they have access to the facilities and the equipment they need to do their job; and decongesting health facilities so that medical staff have the time and space to attend to every patient.
It's the little victories that will come together to change the status quo for women and children in Tanzania. A donation of $55 USD this holiday season will fund a skilled delivery by trained medical staff: giving both mother and baby a better chance for survival. Make more of these victories possible, and support our work at CCBRT. Help us to continue to save lives and improve the quality of maternal and newborn healthcare in Tanzania.
Watch this video to learn more about how your support for our maternal healthcare program is changing lives: http://youtu.be/4-GqGew-QbU
You can help us win an additional $3,000 from GlobalGiving to help make motherhood safe in Tanzania by giving to this project between December 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014!
With gratitude,
Abbey
P.S. - Want to do a little more to help out Kupona during the holidays?
[1] Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) 2010, National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania, April 2011, Dar es Salaam
[2] The Millennium Development Goals Report 2014’, United Nations
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 will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
Make a monthly donation & get 
