We have not been reaching our monthly fundraising targets but somehow our team always comes up with strategies to ensure the insufficient resources are not a hindrance to keeping our promises to these women and children in the communities we . A lot of times, we have to improvise and make different sacrifices to ensure that we keep going come hell or high water. Our November outreach is not an exception.
Our goal as an organisation is to ensure better outcomes for mothers and children, especially the neglected, marginalized and the vulnerable. There are times our interventions are strictly wellbeing and welfare oriented and there are also times it’s wellbeing, welfare, health/clinical combined.
Kirikiri Prisons
Donations given to incarcerated women and their babies in Kirikiri Prison, Lagos ,Nigeria
Our Maternal and Child Wellbeing intervention this month of November focused on the incarcerated women and their wards who most times have to share in their mother’s plight their ages notwithstanding. The welfare and well-being of women in our prison systems is not ideal which was why we extended a hand of care to them this month donating essential items to WOMEN prison Kirikiri. Some were donated by an individual who has been committed to our cause while we included other items we considered really necessary to the well-being of these children.
Jesuko Community
We have not been to Jesuko since the COVID-19 lockdown. We are glad to resume back as the church we use resumed their weekly prayer meeting for pregnant women so we were able to resume our free basic routine antenatal care.
We attended to 4 pregnant women with basic routine antenatal care and also distributed women’s wear donated to us
Oko Agbon Community
We have a lot of work to get done in this community. Our community mobilizers wrote letters in their dialect to churches in this community in order to improve attendance, an approach that didn’t really yield much until a community mobilizer went round the community with a bell heralding our arrival. Eventually we had an increase in turn out.
We carried out a free routine blood test on 16 women and children, one tested positive for hepatitis B. We are already working on a follow up check to ensure she gets the care she needs.
We attended to a pregnant woman with basic routine antenatal care, drugs, tetanus shot and ANTIMALARIAL medication recommended for pregnant women.
We immunized 4children and distributed women’s wear to all the women in attendance. We also spoke with these women on ways to help other community dwellers benefit from our routine outreach.
Sogunro Community
We faced the ordeal of flood going into Sogunro but our team met it with our well suited swampy overall. Our community health volunteers and mobilizers already did the bulk of the setting up work for us so activities resumed almost immediately after we arrived.
We attended to 26 pregnant women, 11 of them had their tetanus shots. 10 of them had the recommended ANTIMALARIAL medication for pregnant women, all these pregnant women had their blood drawn to check for HIV 1&2 and Hepatitis B and all came out negative.
We immunized 33 babies. One of the immunized babies was a baby boy born while we were working. The birth was assisted by a traditional birth attendant within the community. We were informed about the delivery and our community health workers went to check on the mother and baby to ascertain the state of their health and well-being.
We were glad we went because we discovered the cord wasn’t properly tied and as a result the baby was bleeding from the cord. Our team quickly gave the necessary cord care to stop the bleed and instructed the family on how to better care for the cord. We also recommended the required postpartum care to the mother who was really weak and tired from the delivery. Our vaccination nurse and community health mobilizer then took the at birth vaccination to the baby’s home to ensure that he is well immunized against childhood illness with BCG, hepatitis and oral polio.
2 women had the 3 month injectable contraceptives through the help of a reprolife family planning nurse in attendance. Of all the routine blood tests done, someone tested positive for HIV and we are also making arrangements for referral to the appropriate facility.
We finished later than we usually do today as a result of the activities embedded in today.
All of our outreaches this month were attended to by skilled nurses, midwives, community health workers and lab technicians. Thank you for making our wishes of changing Maternal and Child Health and well-being stories around for good together we are making a difference.
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