Projects

Help us build a Birth House for the Traditional Midwives of our Village!!
Click here for brochure.
            Kafountine, a fishing village on the coast of southern Senegal, has a rapidly expanding population.  The only maternity clinic is not within easy walking distance for laboring women who live in neighborhoods on the outskirts of town.  Although it may be possible to hire or arrange for transportation during the day, many women give birth at night when there aren't any cars available to drive them across town. 
            Over the years a group of women, in the predominantly Diola neighborhood known as Kabar, has nurtured an informal women’s society that shares in assisting births.  For the Diola, childbirth is highly revered as sacred for the women, and not something for men of the tribe to witness.  They use traditional herbal remedies and practices taught to them by their mothers and grandmothers.
            Last year at a peaceful and moving gathering, the guests of African Birth Collective sat in a circle with these traditional midwives and shared information about pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, herbs, and nutrition as practiced in the developed world.  The women of Kabar expressed their intention to continue their use of traditional herbs to ease labor, and they described how most homebirths occur in the bathing area behind a house on a piece of fabric spread on the ground.  Once the baby is born, the mother & child are brought back into the home where they remain for one week before rejoining the community in outdoor activities.  The women of Kabar made clear that this is not ideal and expressed their need for a place to give birth that is clean, warm and close to their homes. 
            The African Birth Collective has decided to financially sponsor this easily achievable project.  With your donations we will construct an earthen structure using local traditional building methods.  This enclosed space will provide the women of Kabar a centralized location for maternal care and a clean, safe place for women to have their babies.  We ask you to participate in this project through your monetary contributions, and we will post progress reports on our website so that you can see the results of your generosity in the maternity center and the happy appreciative faces of the women of Kabar!

A Book for Midwives' for Francophone countries
            The Hesperian Foundation has published several essential texts designed for the village medical practitioner, which are available in English, Spanish, Chinese and sometimes French.  Simply written and heavily illustrated, these books contain a wealth of life-saving information on diagnosing and treating a broad range of health problems. The Hesperian Foundation works in close collaboration with health workers, grassroots groups, and community organizations around the world, to assure that their books and newsletters are practical, accessible, and appropriate across different conditions and cultures.  The most famous of these volumes is “Where There is No Doctor”, which had already been translated and published into French by ENDA Santé in Dakar, Senegal.
            Their volume “A Book for Midwives” is the most appropriate and useful text for training ‘matrones’ in midwifery skills and knowledge at a rural level, but it is not yet available in French.  Hesperian has an open copyright policy and supports the translations of their books.  ENDA Santé has agreed to the project of translation for 12.500 cfa per page or 8.507.000 ($17,600) for the entire edition.  Hesperian Foundation has donated $5600 towards this effort and African Birth Collective has fundraised $4000 from individual donations and tuition surpluses.  This leaves a balance of approximately $8000 for the translation and editing. 
            The current maternal mortality rate in Senegal is twice that of Mali and three times that of India.  Some of the practices used in Senegalese clinics as standard procedure, such as extreme fundal pressure and oxytocic drugs before delivery, are considered very dangerous and are discussed in detail in this book.  We feel that the availability of this text for training and reference would be an essential step towards reducing these high mortality rates and improving the education of ‘matrones’ not only in Senegal, but throughout francophone West Africa.  We have a list of partner organizations in Haiti, Congo, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire and Cameroon already hoping to obtain copies to be used in educational programs for direct entry midwives in their countries.  We also have heard from Family Care International and White Ribbon Alliance, expressing their interest in seeing the completion and implementation of this edition. 

Please consider lending your support to this important project.

Click here to view the Hesperian Foundation's description of the book.

Donations are greatly appreciated!