Launching Photo Voice Project!!

SAFE 2012 International Practicum Student, Serena Rodriguez, launched a brand new project for SAFE this summer called "Photo Voice." In this initiative, rural men and women were trained in the basics of photography, then given digital cameras to "show what maternal and child health meant" to them. In the picture below, some of the photos taken during the project are being viewed by village women at a health fair, which is having the desired effect of stimulating conversation about maternal and child health, the challenges rural communities face, and some of the current and/or potential solutions to improving them! Way to go Photo Voice, and Serena Rodriguez!!

Photo Credit: Serena Rodriguez

Launching the Safe Mama Kit Business!

Safe Mothers, Safe Babies is working with the women from a development association to found a "mama kit" business (mama kits are also known as clean birthing kits, containing the necessary supplies required by a hospital for a clean, vaginal delivery). Last year, SAFE Intern from the University of Texas Monika Tomczuk developed the idea for a mama kit business, and this summer, new summer interns and practicum students from the University of Texas and Jefferson Medical School brought the idea to fruition! Below, the women are receiving training about how to handle health products while assembling the kits without contaminating the supplies. We are SOO excited to see this project finally getting off the ground--special thanks to our wonderful summer interns (last year's and this year's)!

Photo Credit: Serena Rodriguez

Life-saving Light at the Iganga Hospital

Check out this photo of the Solar Suitcase powered LED light allowing surgeons to conduct a life-saving surgery at the Iganga District Hospital this week. Wow!

Photo Credit: WE CARE Solar

Lighting the Darkness in Partnership with WE CARE Solar and Rural Communities!

Can you imagine personally delivering--or birthing--a baby in total darkness? What if your wife, mother, sister, or friend needed to undergo an emergency cesarean section to save her life or the life of her unborn child's? These thoughts are terrifying, and Safe Mother, Safe Babies believes that nobody should ever face such conditions as a reality. That is why SAFE partnered with WE CARE Solar to bring Solar Suitcases to Ugandan health facilities' maternity wards and operating theaters. Our first set of installations took place in December, but right now, WE CARE Solar is in Uganda doing more installations as we speak! Check out the pictures and captions below for some insight into their experiences with SAFE! 

Above: Operating Theater Nurse Rebecca with the December-installed Solar Suitcase in the Iganga District Hospital Operating Theater. She is holding the mobile light that the OR team uses during cesarean sections (so they can get just the right positioning) when the power goes out! WE CARE Solar Technical Director and Engineer, Hal Aronson, is in the background.

Above: WE CARE Solar Executive Director, Laura Stachel, and Technical Director, Hal Aronson, at the Lubira Health Center Solar Suitcase Celebration! The community groups with which SAFE works put on a HUGE celebration to promote the Solar Suticase and celebrate the help they received from WE CARE Solar and SAFE. It featured songs, dramas, dancing, and a health fair, and was the biggest celebration we've had yet (hundreds of people came)!

Above: During the celebration, Laura Stachel (clinically trained OB/GYN) went into the health center to help deliver a health baby boy under the newly installed Solar Suitcase lights. The mother was so appreciative of all the help she received that she named her son "Hal" after Hal Aronson, WE CARE Solar's Technical Director who installed the Solar Suitcase!

This is further proof of the great work that can happen when two dynamic and dedicated nonprofits work TOGETHER to bring sustainable change to rural maternal and child health. We have loved working with WE CARE Solar, and are excited for all the work we will continue to accomplish together, lighting up the darkness, in full and equal partnership with rural Ugandan women, their families, and health facilities.

Solar Suitcase Installation and Epic Celebration Coming to Lubira Health Center!

For any one who has followed SAFE for any length of time, the name "Lubira Health Center" will be a common term. SAFE has been working with Lubira in various capacities for several years, and recently had some challenges that made it impossible to launch the eRanger program at the health center as intended. At one point, we actually considered ceasing our work in Lubira, as a result of poor staffing and mismanagement of materials. But, in a true triumph of participatory development, the community groups surrounding Lubira asked SAFE not to pull out and to instead allow them to take on the issue of managing the health center by getting their members elected to the managing Sub-County Health Committee! Four months latter, that's exactly what has happened, and man are we glad it did!

While working in the health center still has its challenges, the new health committee along with the groups themselves are VERY committed to improving the quality of care provided at the health center. Thus far, they have personally provided new curtains, a weighing scale, and a table, and met with the staff on several occasions to demand greater accountability and attendance. They have even set up a nigh guard schedule with their members to guarantee equipment safety, AND raised the money to fix a solar unit that SAFE had donated several years ago that broke when someone stole some key components.

After all of this progress, we were impressed when the community came to SAFE with a proposition--they asked us if we could put a WE CARE Solar Suitcase in the Maternity Ward and allow them to move the fixed solar unit (smaller and less reliable) into the staff quarters, to help incentivize the staff to be more reliable about always being available and on-site for deliveries.

We were impressed at the forethought of the request, and simultaneously thought that this would be excellent preparation prior to launching the eRanger program. The Solar Suitcase would provide continuous light, helping to eliminate local women's stated fear of delivering in darkness, and would also allow cell phone charging to help facilitate dispatching the eRanger.

And lucky for us, WE CARE Solar is visiting SAFE in Uganda right now! And thus, on Sunday, a Solar Suitcase will be installed in the Lubira Maternity Ward, coinciding with the largest community health fair and celebration the Lubira community has ever had! At least 100 group members will be attending and presenting their educational songs and dramas; there will be immunizations, deworming, malaria testing and treatment, and HIV testing and counseling. SAFE will also be displaying the group's photos from the Photo Voice project. We are excited, and will post pictures as soon as we get them!

June in Uganda: SAFE interns at Ibulanku and Lubira health centers

A group of medical and public health students from the University of Texas recently returned from Uganda where they were working on a variety of projects pertaining to SAFE’s e-Ranger motorcycle ambulance program, which was launched just last summer!

Along with SAFE’s Program Manager Mukalu Medie, the group consisted of SAFE interns Danika Brodak and Rica Mauricio who worked with Lubira health center, as well as Brittany Meyers, Youstina Ishak, and SAFE practicum student Paul Tumbu – the subgroup that worked at Ibulanku health center.

Since the e-Ranger program is already established at Ibulanku, the main goal of the Ibulanku subgroup was to assess the overall effectiveness of the program. The group met with the staff at Ibulanku health center to determine generally how the project is faring. They also gathered delivery and antenatal records from the hospital to gauge both how e-Ranger patient information was being collected by the midwives and to see the raw numbers of how many mothers in labor were being effectively transported by the e-Ranger ambulances.

The group also met with MABEDA drama group to assess how the club is using drama performance to promote the use of the e-Ranger motorcycle ambulances in their community.  Community involvement is absolutely essential to the e-Ranger program, because without the community’s support and active involvement, the project would have never been implemented. This emphasizes how important community is in ensuring the health of mothers and babies and families in general! With this in mind, also meeting with the Village Health Teams was helpful in order to discuss their role in community mobilization relating to the use of the motorcycle ambulances to promote safe deliveries – both of women to the health center and of their babies!

Finally, the group at Ibulanku spoke with a former e-Ranger user who shared her experience utilizing the motorcycle ambulance service and asked her if she would help spread the word to other pregnant women in the community. In following with this encouragement, the team also conducted health education sessions for the pregnant women in the antenatal care clinic and discussed with them how to prepare for a safe delivery.

While the e-Ranger program has been running for a year at Ibulanku health center, the program has not yet been established at Lubira, but the SAFE team was working hard to gain the support of health workers and the community at large so that SAFE can launch the program there and thus make the service available to even more mothers in labor! The Lubira subgroup conducted a meeting during which a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Lubira community health center and the Buyanga sub-county community groups. They also met with the Lubira management committee and the health facility staff to discuss the logistics of launching the program.

Also at Lubira, SAFE coordinated many maternal and child health-related activities including having several groups perform dramas about important health topics. SAFE also provided immunizations and conducted HIV testing and referred individuals to the clinic for treatment. The safe mama kit program was also launched, providing mothers with a package of supplies necessary for a clean and safe birth.

Overall, the June 2012 trip was very productive and a great success! The interns paved a great road for the successive group of interns who just arrived in Uganda! The July interns plan on carrying out refresher training with the traditional birth attendants in obstetric emergency response and referral for complicated cases. They are also currently working to follow up on the work done in June on the process of launching the e-Ranger program at the Lubira health center.

Excellent work done by all the June interns, and stay posted for an update about the July trip soon!

The Solar Suitcase at Work!

Check out this photo from SAFE interns Hayley Heath, Ahsley Larsen, and Rachel Fisher. Hayley, Ashley, and Rachel have been in Uganda since May (3 month stay!) evaluating, "Light the Night," our joint project with WE CARE Solar that brough 20 Solar Suitcases to Ugandan maternal health facilities. In the picture below, the Iganga District Hospital Operating Theater staff are using a mobile Solar Suitcase light to start an IV on a newborn during a power outage. Awesome work all the way around!!