Yesterday, BRAC's Kaosar Afsana was invited to present BRAC's Manoshi project to an audience at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
(Dr. Afsana with Mary Taylor, Senior Program Officer, Gates Foundation)
In 2006, BRAC initiated a pilot project to improve maternal and child health amongst those living in the urban slums in Dhaka. In 2007, the project evolved into Manoshi - an extensive maternal, neonatal, and child health program spanning five years with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The program is targeted to benefit approximately eight million urban poor living in the six major cities of Bangladesh.
One of the most prominent features of the Manoshi project has been BRAC's creation of safe birthing huts, where women's deliveries can be attended by trained health workers and the newborns' care can be monitored. In her presentation, Dr. Afsana pointed out the major shift that has occurred in location of delivery, as more women have started giving birth in Delivery Centers and Hospitals as opposed to their own homes (as seen in the slide below).
The presentation also highlighted the increase in referrals of maternal complications. Community health workers are trained to keep track of all birth records, offer essential newborn care, and, in the case of complication, refer the mother and child to neary pre-selected referral facilities, so that they can get the care they need.
While the program has made significant strides in reducing maternal and child mortality rates in Bangladesh, Dr. Afsana also mentioned certain challenges that the Manoshi project still faces, and is working to overcome. Included in these challenges are high C-section rates, unhygienic environments and poor water sanitation practices, and slum evictions.
Overall, the Manoshi project has done, and is continuing to do, a great job in addressing the problem of maternal and child mortality in Bangladesh, and we congratulate them on their success!
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