In rural Senegal, the average age of a girl when she has her first child is 12-14 years old. She is a child, having a child and worse, she is most likely doing it without any medical help. These young women contribute to the disproportionately high number of pregnant women in Africa who never live to become mothers. Our concern isn’t only for the young women who don’t live long enough to raise their children, but also for the children they carry. One in twenty children die during child birth in rural Senegal and few survive if their mother is not alive in the first year.
Many organizations have attempted to decrease the perilously high and devastating rates of maternal death. However, despite their efforts there has been little or no decrease in maternal deaths worldwide. This low effectiveness has led us, WWHI, to seek alternative ways to increase local sustainability, capacity, and efficacy of much needed medical interventions. We have developed a model that combines a community-based approach with a uniquely incentive-based finance model.
