For reference: EMBRACE - a layman's summary

EMBRACE Project summary

Empowering Women & Babies to Receive Adequate Care & Equality

It strikes me that there is a need to say very clearly what we are trying to do with the EMBRACE project. 

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Purpose of EMBRACE

EMBRACE attempts to save the lives of mothers in childbirth, and of children under 5.

In the process, it hopes to bring sustainable and multi-faceted enrichment to the lives of impoverished Tanzanian villages, (starting with Tunguli and Mnafu).

A key feature of this process will be empowerment and education of women.

What will happen in EMBRACE?

Community Health Workers (CHWs) working out of Berega hospital and within a bespoke maternal-child health community team, will engage with the community of Tunguli to foster the development of women’s groups in the wider community. Such groups will draw in (for instance) pregnant women, mothers of young children, and Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs). The composition and setting up of the groups will follow established evidence of what works.

They will also link with influential villagers, and will ensure that each group has a local ‘champion’ – a Village Health Worker (VHW), who will help drive the project in each community. 

The community group, along with the VHWs, TBAs and the CHWs themselves, will seek first to explore the roots of the problems of maternal and under-5 mortality. This in turn will result in identification of needs beyond health, including tackling education, transport, water, sanitation, food, agronomy, family planning and poverty. This will lead to exploring locally-developed solutions, initially to deal with safe childbirth, and secondly safe child-rearing.

The extended EMBRACE support network, working each to their own strength but in harmony with the whole, will then seek to turn those solutions into reality, using well-judged, well-executed and sustainable methodologies, (eg growth charts; sanitation systems; immunisations; protected wells; affordable emergency transport; family planning; food and cash-crop plantations; malaria prevention; anaemia prevention; TBA education; female education groups; etc.)

During the process, EMBRACE will attempt to measure the effects of the programme, and to learn lessons, initially for the EMBRACE project in the community of Mnafu.

The whole programme will be against a backdrop of enhanced and regularly checked clinical standards in the hospital, within plans for future training of Berega’s own Clinical Officers – front line clinical staff both in community and hospital.

Why EMBRACE?

Community mobilisation and participation works – especially when women are empowered:

The Lancet, Volume 372, Issue 9642, Pages 962 - 971, 13 September 2008

However, unsupported it can be slow, and can identify needs way beyond the remit of the project sponsors. EMBRACE will be ready to meet all those needs arising from the mobilisation of the community, which impinge on maternal and child mortality. This will be done in a synchronised way, with measurement of results, and plans for up-scaling to the wider territory of Berega Hospital.

This similar project in Malawi has had inspiring results:

http://vimeo.com/12427420