Train 25 Women to become Birth Attendants

Dear HOPE Supporter,

The birth attendants in training at HOPE Hospital are able to gain a special opportunity in the field. Due to a special grant provided to us by a women's giving circle, HOPE Foundation will be providing 500 pregnant women with full antenatal care and 100 special needs mothers with transportation to the hospital for delivery. This project affords us the opportunity to utilize our birth attendant trainees in getting into the field and working with mothers. They will not only be able to put their newly attained skills to use, but will also begin to see the ibncredible impact their jobs have on saving lives. They will come to this recognition as they encounter women with complications such as high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia and malnutrition. All of these conditions illicit urgent attention on the mother, particularly when she delivers birth. If our birth attendants did not provide them these serices, these women would not know otherwise of their potentially fatal conditions. 

We look forward to seeing how our students perform in the field and to update you with these results. Thank you for your commitment to training health workers and meeting the high demand in the rural area of Cox's Bazar. Together we can save lives.

Best Regards,

Ashley Pugh

• HOPE's Annual Report (PDF)
  

Dear HOPE Supporter,

Did you know that every year in Bangladesh 3 million women become pregnant, and out of that 3 million an estimated 600,000 are expected to develop complications? Complications range from obstetric fistula, urinary incontinence, infection, post-partum hemorrhage and so much more. Utilizing the birth attendants we have already trained, these women have gone above and beyond to educate the communities in which they live and serve as to the importance of maternal care. Due to an increase in education, 147 ultrasounds have been performed in the first two months of 2014 alone. The number of rural women seeking ultrasound services has improved dramatically, indicating that our birth attendants are hard at work raising awareness for preventive care and services prior to delivery. A simple ultrasound can let the doctor, birth attendant and patient know whether the mother is experiencing a high-risk pregnancy due to fetal positioning, a narrow birth canal, and other factors that lead to a dangerous birth at home. It is with the trust these patients have formed with their birth attendants, all local women, hat have enabled this breakthrough in access to services. Thank you for your support in this endeavor. We couldn't do it without you.

Best Regards,

Ashley Pugh

Links:

• HOPE's Website

Dear HOPE Supporter,

We want to thank you for your invaluable commitment to not only saving mothers and newborns’ lives but also to building the capacity of the local women of Cox’s Bazar. This is a special project of HOPE’s as these trained women can go out into the community and start their own businesses, or they are more than welcome to work for HOPE’s outreach programs. The empowerment that these women have in choosing their career paths is novel in this area and it is a breath of fresh air.

The women being trained currently as birth attendants are learning such an increased amount due to the visits of international physicians. Resurge International, a California-based organization that works to repair burns held a burn repair camp but also worked diligently in training our staff in burn care as well as increased care. HOPE’s birth attendants were present for these workshops and received specialized training in burn patient care. While burn care does not immediately make sense for birthing attendants, it is the increased knowledge and practice gained by seasoned medical professions that is imparted to our staff that truly help them to grow and become better medical professionals. Please see below as Harshada learns how to resuscitate a newborn.

As always, thank you for your dedicated commitment to improving maternal health in an area that so desperately needs it.

Best Rest regards this holiday season!

Ashley Pugh

Links:

• HOPE's Website

Dear HOPE Supporter,

Thank you very much for your generous donation to HOPE's project dedicated to training birth attendants! Your support has afforded us to make great strides in continuing our first ever Bangladeshi recognized Midwifery program! At present, our students are working hard in their electives. The girls have visited local hospitals and clinics to lend their support, spread awareness about critical women's health issues and even recruited obstetric fistula patients for our upcoming Fistula Repair Camp. This is an incredible accomplishment, as finding and encouraging fistula patients to come forward is very difficult. At the moment, HOPE is looking to recruit 50 more local girls for next year's class. We are remaining on track to train and disburse hundreds of midwives into the local communition, particulary the remore villages, in order to prevent Obstetric Fistula, conduct family planning, increse maternal care, and most importantly, practice safe delivery. The more midwivse we train, the more lives we can save, of both infants and their Mothers! Thank you again for your dedicated support to this incredible cause.

Best Regards,

Ashley Pugh

Links:

• HOPE Foundation's website

HOPE Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh has been extremely busy in the past few months! Despite Cyclone Mahasan that hit our village of Cox’s Bazar, we have continued to provide lifesaving health care services to those most in need. HOPE Foundation has held two cleft surgery camps in collaboration with our recent partner Smile Train, working tirelessly to give those children a second chance at life. HOPE also received a visit from our obstetric fistula surgeon, the world renowned Dr. Steven Arrowsmith, and put on an obstetric fistula repair camp during the cyclone! Because of these efforts, 18 women are now cured of their incredibly debilitating condition. In addition to providing high quality health care to thousands of women and children, these specialized care camps make HOPE a place for advanced medical specialty, which is rare given just how rural and remote of areas we are working in.

HOPE has formed new partnerships as well. On top of gaining new corporate sponsors, HOPE is now partnering with Resurge International, a California-based organization that conducts medical missions to cure burn, trauma and cleft in the world’s most desperate of places. In South Asia, more children die of severe burns than HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Respiratory disease! This is due to the fact that women and children use open fire cooking pits to cook and light their homes. Often times their clothing is too loose from the body and catches on fire. Other times children are playing too closely to the fire and lack adult supervision. We are now working to address these severe burns and provide reconstructive surgery to hands and feet that have been rendered useless due to burn injuries. HOPE is looking forward to October when Resurge International will come to Cox’s Bazar and provide 50 surgeries to disabled individuals!

In the near future HOPE will be expanding its educational and training opportunities for rural women and girls, and provide not only them with a livelihood and advanced skill, but also be increasing the capacity of Cox’s Bazar to help bring themselves out of poverty. In educating more girls in the health care field, we are giving them the skills training that will employ them for the rest of their lives, while helping the community build better access to trained health care workers. It is essential that we continue to build the capacity of the region in which we work, as it is the most sustainable way forward. HOPE wants to ensure we are always giving back to these people in the most appropriate and generous form.

Thank you for your incredible support to HOPE Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh. Without you, we could not do any of this lifesaving work!

Links:

• Check out HOPE's new website!