African Visitors Give Thanks to Donors through Project Feedback

During a RH seminar conducted by JOICFP for African GO and NGO representatives, Esther Muketo, Project Manager, Family Health Options, Kenya, and Joseph Kabamba, Assistant Program Officer, Community-operated RH Project, PPAZ, visited the Japan Bicycle Promotion Institute (JBPI) to give thanks for its support of the MCCOBA program.

Since 1988, MCCOBA has sent 4,731 bicycles to project areas in Zambia, and since 1993, 1,525 to Kenya. In addition, spare parts for the bicycles and stationery have been sent as well.

Kabamba told the president and executive director of JBPI how the bicycles were used in rural areas by community based distributors (CBDs), traditional birth attendants(TBAs), and Peer Educators to spread health information and provide services for safe motherhood.

Kabamba and Muketo explain how bicycles are invaluable
in community health care

He explained that these people could more easily travel long distances to visit clients, carry out health checks and monitor the taking of medicine, and distribute information. These active volunteers drastically reduced maternal mortality. In 2005 and 2006, there was no maternal deaths in Masaiti district, the PPAZ-JOICFP project site, and in 2006, PPAZ received a UN public award for its outcome of the project.

JOICFP and PPAZ have been working together since 1985, integrating family planning and reproductive health, and nutrition through entry points such as parasite control.

In this way, harmful traditional practices and beliefs, such as restricting diet for pregnant women and giving birth every year,were gradually overcome.

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Community-based Distributors cycle long distances
in Zambia to deliver care

Kenya

Project sites in Kenya are in urban areas where city planning is scarce. Streets are very narrow and crowded, and peer educators from youth centers use the bicycles to deliver information.

PLWHA are often reluctant to visit health centers as this would stigmatize them, so the peer educators and other volunteers visit to deliver home-based care. In addition, they can promote family planning and safe motherhood to reduce maternal mortality.

Muketo said that the demand for bicycles was high, and she hoped that Japan would continue to send more.

JBIP were pleased to hear how the bicycles were being used and that they were having such a positive impact on the community, and that this motivated them to maintain the budget to support MCCOBA.

JBIP explained that without the feedback from the visitors from Africa they did not know if the support was of value or not, and hearing how the bicycles made such a difference to the lives of mothers touched them and made them happy.