For reference: An easy to read summary of Meetings 2 to 9

Tushikamane Meetings 2 to 9

…from considering what causes tragic death, through to deciding what to do about it

Meeting 2: Young women identify maternal health problems.

What are the main health issues for mothers in pregnancy? What kills mothers? What do mothers currently do for health care during pregnancy and delivery? What do they do when they get ill?

Meeting 3: Young women identify neonatal problems

What are the main health issues affecting babies during pregnancy, delivery and after birth. What kills babies and children? What do babies and children currently do for health care in the first five years of life? What do the family do when the child gets ill?

Meeting 4: Prioritising problems

Of the issues discussed in the first two meetings, what are the most important priority problems to tackle? What are the key problems for this hamlet to tackle? This meeting is to get the group to focus down on the main things which kill mothers and children – eg obstructed labour; bleeding; anaemia; malaria; pneumonia; malnutrition; eclampsia; infections.

Meeting 5: Identifying contributing factors

Having identified these issues, the group is now invited to examine the roots of these problems. (Perhaps this process already began at Meeting 4, which is fine.)

 – eg maybe the woman who bled to death started off anaemic from malaria. Maybe the child who died of pneumonia was already weak from malnutrition and chronic diarrhoea. Maybe the woman who died in obstructed labour was given medicine which ruptured the uterus. Other root causes identified might be, eg, poor water supply; poor transport; no antenatal care; indoor fires; no breast feeding; no variety in the diet; too many mosquitos; no immunisation; too many mouths to feed; etc etc

This is a really critical meeting. Somehow, the Facilitator has to get the group themselves to come up with a whole list of the roots which underlie the problem of death. They have to do this without preaching – it is the women of the hamlet who must be allowed to say what they think, and then carefully guided to become strongly motivated to tackle the root causes of tragic death.

Meeting 6: Identifying prevention and management activities

What sort of activities might make a difference? The sorts of things which might come up are:

·         Transport

·         Group fund

·         Clean delivery kits

·         Income generating

·         Vegetable gardens

·      VHW and  TBA training to improve issues such as safe birth; breast feeding; family planning; immunisation; sanitation; malaria prevention; recognising signs of severe illness, etc

Meeting 7: Making plans

Which of the things already talked about are the most important?

Which things are the women of the hamlet really keen to tackle?

What are the things which might stop the hamlet tackling the priority problems?

Meeting 8: Presenting progress to the community

At this meeting, the women of the Tushikamane group present to the community a summary of what they have been talking about. The main idea is to motivate the community to want to tackle the root causes of tragic death.

The group feeds back to the community a summary of what they think are the main issues to be tackled if they want to prevent death. They then gather the ideas and opinions of all community members, and get encouragement and support for the implementation of solutions.

Meeting 9: Planning the solutions

At this meeting, the hamlet finalises what it wants to tackle – three or four projects which will make the hamlet a much safer place for mothers and children – eg better water supply; sanitation; dealing with mosquitos; garden projects; training of VHWs and TBAs; better access to health care, immunisation, family planning etc.