Positive Aid has been funding maternal and child health activities in Uranga since 2013. With a small budget, carefully planned and used, we have been able to support 208 women from remote villages to give birth safely in health facilities. These women have accessed transport (even in the middle of the night) to get to a facility, and have been aided with essential materials such as cotton wool, gloves and buckets for bathing their young babies. By giving birth in facilities, they have side-stepped many grave risks and complications faced when birthing at home. Those women who have HIV/AIDS have also been able to prevent the virus transmitting to their babies during labour. We have also been able to start ten clubs for pregnant women to come and regularly learn about how to stay healthy and give their babies the best start to life.

Our recent assessment of how things are going two years down the track involved bringing women from the villages together to discuss successes and ongoing challenges. Their feedback, together with insight and information from medical staff and local chiefs, highlighted several key ideas that will make the project even more effective. We are now in the process of refining these ideas and planning how to best implement them. It was encouraging to find that we have achieved so much already, and that we have to potential to make an even greater impact moving forward.