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.

Light the Night Featured by Women Deliver

We are so excited to share that Women Deliver featured "Light the Night"--our joint project with WE CARE Solar lighting up rural health centers and hospitals all over Uganda (including partnerships with AMREF Uganda and the White Ribbon Alliance Uganda)--on their Facebook Page and blog! SAFE is honored to be counted among the many other incredible solutions that Women Deliver features on a regular basis. Woohoo! Check it out here: http://www.womendeliver.org/updates/entry/celebrate-solutions-solar-energy-for-safer-births/

Light the Night Headed to Uganda!

Last weekend, SAFE Founder Jacqueline Cutts and Technical Director Richard Cutts (along with their son, Jacob) headed to Berkeley, CA to be trained in the installation, repair, maintenance, and usage of the Solar Suitcase. Later this month, SAFE will receive 20 Solar Suitcases to install in Ugandan health facilities, including the clinics with which we regularly work on other maternal and child health projects, in addition to the health centers and hospitals affiliated with several other partner organizations (including AMREF, UNICEF, and the Uganda Development and Health Associates, among others). We would like to give a HUGE thank you to the Segal Family Foundation for making this possible, as well as to WE CARE Solar for the incredible project, superior teaching skills, and partnership!! 

WE CARE Solar Co-founders Laura Stachel, MD (Executive Director) and Hal Aronson
(Technology Director) with SAFE's Jacquie and Richard Cutts (and their son, Jacob).

Solar Suitcases at the MRI factory in California, being prepared for shipment!

Fully assembled Solar Suitcases, being shipped THIS WEEK!!!

Congrats to Partner WE CARE Solar!

SAFE has been working with an organization called WE CARE Solar on a project to install WE CARE Solar Suitcases in several rural health centers in Iganga and neighboring Namutumba District, and the Jinja National Referral Hospital Maternity Ward and Operating Theater. We are thrilled to give them a shout out for being named a laureate in The Tech Awards!! For more information, check out: http://thetechawards.thetech.org/media_room/international-laureates-be-honored-tech-awards

Woot woot WE CARE Solar!!