This project aims to improve the health and nutrition of newborns, children under five, and women of reproductive age in the Segou region of Mali, and in the Swabi district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan by improving the availability and use of health and nutrition services at the community level. Benefiting an estimated 330,000 children, 161,000 women and 1,600 local Ministry of Health workers, the project promotes the use of quality health, nutrition and family planning services, and improved health, nutrition and family planning behaviours of caregivers and family members. Activities include: training local Ministry of Health partners to support and supervise community health workers; training community health workers to assess and treat sick children, and provide family planning services; and educating families about healthy behaviours, signs of illnesses and seeking care. Save the Children Canada is working with the Mali and Pakistan ministries of health on this project. This project is part of Canada’s Maternal, Newborn and Child Health commitment.
Results achieved as of September 2013 include: In Mali: (i) training health care facility staff in Community Case Management (CCM), a strategy to deliver lifesaving interventions in communities with limited access to formal health facilities; (ii) conducting a mapping exercise to determine the best placement for community health agent sites and satellite villages within each health district; (iii) providing 11 training sessions for community health agents on CCM of malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea; (iv) conducting five training sessions for supervisors of community health agents on supervising the CCM of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea; and (v) distributing a training guide, supervising guidelines and other tools to supervisors of community health agents to help them effectively fulfill their supervisory role. In Pakistan, (i) providing reference manuals, checklists and toolkits to all of the targeted Lady Health Workers and Lady Health Supervisors trained in four training sessions; and (ii) training 84 out of 96 facility-based healthcare providers on CCM and community based management of acute malnutrition. These results are contributing to increasing access to available and improved quality referral services for severe cases of malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea in Mali and Pakistan, and complicated cases of severe and acute malnutrition in Pakistan; and increasing community and Ministry of Health capacity to manage and support effective health and nutrition programs.
