a band aid solution?
Chad is a country with some seemingly insurmountable problems. Most of its inhabitants live in poverty; others manage – just! The political situation is highly volatile, and key decision-makers come and go frequently. We can’t solve Chad’s big, long-term problems, but we don’t believe that excuses us from trying to help wherever we can. We are not here to negotiate with an unstable government. We are not here to effect country-wide political and cultural change. We are here to offer immediate help to dedicated clinicians and allow them to do their job to the best of their abilities, and in doing so make birth safer for the women and babies they care for. We hope that in making a big difference on a small scale, we will one day be able to extend this help to other clinics in Chad. |
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sustainable aid
The essence
of sustainable aid is that you give the recipient the means to support
themselves. Rather than give bread, you give seeds to grow wheat, and
build wells to irrigate them. This is eminently sensible.
However, with maternity care it just isn’t that simple. The ‘seeds’ it
needs include midwifery training, more health clinics, more obstetricians,
more anaesthetists. It needs a free health-care system, with antenatal
checks. It needs roads and transport to get women to those antenatal checks.
It needs education to stress why women should have those checks. It needs
a government that considers health care a priority in order to provide
that education.
But that’s not all – problems are caused by children as young as 12 giving
birth, by female circumcision, by backstreet abortions. These things may
take years, even decades to
change. They may never change. Many dedicated, highly respected agencies,
such as the UN, have enormous resources and expertise to start to tackle
these issues – and they are doing so. They have a long and troubled road
ahead, but we believe they are the best people to take on such a task.
In the meantime, we are not content to let mothers and babies continue to die unnecessarily. Hope for Grace Kodindo is about helping NOW.