Kenya – Supporting teenage mothers and prevention

In rural Kenya, many teenage girls, often from very poor households, find themselves pregnant. Their parents, busy with survival, leave their children to their own devices. The girls know virtually nothing about human reproduction. But when they get pregnant, the parents are often very angry and take the girl out of school as punishment and out of shame. As a result, her future is severely compromised. These early pregnancies are also high risk, as the girl’s body is not ready. Fistula and other lifelong invalidating sequels can occur when a teenage mom survives a difficult birth she went through all alone, caught by surprise or deliberately hiding away.

We want to save the lives of these pregnant teens and bring teenage pregnancy down. They need appropriate care and assistance during childbirth, as well as advice on contraception and support for returning to school or finding employment, and acceptance by their families.

To reduce teenage pregnancies overall, sexual education classes will be organized by the JamboMama! team in the secondary schools and other places in the area where youth gatherings occur. The age of first pregnancy continues to go down; we need to reach girls and boys who have barely reached puberty, aged 10-14.

The educational and training materials used are the content of our JamboMama! app, available in video and PowerPoint formats for viewing at group discussions and special sexual education material under development in consultation with the local implementing team. Content: healthy lifestyle and nutrition, biological reproductive health facts, but also how to access post-rape counselling and care, including the morning-after pill, now approved by the Kenyan government.

Our crowdfunding goals:

1. Medical care, pregnancy monitoring, and school reintegration or a decent job for some 50 pregnant teenagers.
2. Sex education and pregnancy prevention for girls and boys in secondary schools.

DR Congo – Improving maternity and reproductive healthcare

In East Congo a SAHFA team has been contributing to pregnancy literacy using the JamboMama! app and teaching materials for two years. This stimulated early and regular attendance of antenatal clinic at a community health centre in Bukavu, as women were very keen on these sensibilisation sessions, suspended when it became too dangerous to go there for our staff. It is calmer now, though far from secure, but hopeful enough for a small project to enable the health centre to provide proper care to the many women and girls who became victims of the widespread sexual violence aggravated by the war. All suffer from the war’s ongoing impact. There is hunger, there is no care. Banks remain closed, so no supplies can be bought, staff not properly paid.

SAHFA proposes to assist this community health centre to provide adequate gynaecological and obstetrical care to the women and girls of that zone. The direct sexual violence and the unmet needs of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care have aggravated maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. Malnutrition, absence of hygiene, medical staff underpaid and poorly trained, all essential materials, such as surgical gloves, eyedrops for newborns, oxytocin, blood products, oxygen, even clean water itself and sanitation are lacking now.

Our crowdfunding goals: improve access to affordable, adequate and respectful maternal and reproductive health care services to pregnant women and girls, many victims of sexual violence.