Media Contact: Charles Otwori, cotwori@pathfinder.org
Homabay County, Kenya, November 22, 2021—Pathfinder, in partnership with AMREF Health Africa (consortium lead), Pharma Access Foundation, and Action Aid Kenya, received 150,000,000 KES (US$1.3 million) from the M-Pesa Foundation to implement an integrated two-year program in Ndhiwa, Homabay County, Kenya. The project, Uzazi Salama, or “Safe Parenting” in Kiswahili, will strengthen the health system to increase access to and use of quality, high-impact reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) services in Homabay County.
These RMNCAH services include: antenatal care; skilled delivery; postpartum services; nutrition services; immunizations; family planning services; and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). The project builds on lessons from the first iteration of Uzazi Salama, which was carried out in Kenya’s Samburu County.
“We thank the M-Pesa Foundation for this generous award that will allow us to improve and save the lives of mothers and their children in Homabay County, a region of Kenya with a significant number of maternal and newborn mortalities related to suboptimal health prevention and treatment services,” said Dr. Charles Otwori, who will lead the project on behalf of Pathfinder in Kenya. “This project will build on our legacy of work over the past 64 years in Kenya helping the government to strengthen the health system to offer integrated, quality, client-centered health services for mothers and children.”
Uzazi Salama seeks to:
- Increase demand for high-impact, quality RMNCAH services through targeted behavior change communications and gender-transformative approaches that empower women and engage men.
- Increase availability and delivery of high-impact, quality RMNCAH services at health facilities.
- Strengthen county health systems for delivery of high-impact, quality RMNCAH services.
The project will draw from Pathfinder’s experience implementing two projects in Kenya: the USAID-funded Afya Pwani project, which integrated RMNCAH, family planning, WASH, HIV, and nutrition activities in Kilifi County, and Health of People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin, an integrated health and environment project in Homabay county on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Uzazi Salama seeks to reach 200,000 community members in Homabay, including 50,000 women of reproductive age and 40,000 children under age 5, over the next two years.
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Pathfinder International is driven by the conviction that all people, regardless of where they live, have the right to decide whether and when to have children, to exist free from fear and stigma, and to lead the lives they choose. As a global health organization with locally led, community-driven programs, we support women to make their own reproductive health decisions. We work with local partners to advance contraceptive services, comprehensive abortion care, and young people’s sexual and reproductive rights in communities around the world—including those affected by poverty, conflict, climate change, and natural disasters. Taken together, our programs enable millions of people to choose their own paths forward.
