Since 2006, Mali Health has advanced sustainable improvements in health care quality and access for people living in impoverished areas of Bamako. The organization began in Sikoro, a peri-urban slum, as a partnership between Brown University students, local government leaders, Commune-level health officials, local residents, and grassroots donors.
Mali Health’s Community Health Action Group (CHAG) was launched in 2006. The CHAG was comprised of Sikoro residents whose role was to prioritize local health needs and to collectively design innovative ways to address them. The CHAG members were especially impassioned by the links between women’s empowerment and child survival. More, they
recognized a need for increased access to health information in Sikoro and other Bamako neighborhoods. In 2009, the Health Radio program was launched. The show covers disease prevention strategies as well as governance and community organizing issues affecting health access and health outcomes.
Over the past seven years, Mali Health has instituted several programs that focus on improving maternal and child health outcomes amongst Bamako’s most impoverished populations. Mali Health delivers cost-effective results through community-driven, culturally appropriate, and sustainable approaches and serves as an effective development model for other communities.
In 2010, Mali Health launched two of its flagship projects – the construction and opening of a public clinic that serves over 10,000 people annually, and the Action for Health program. Action for Health is a Community Health Worker (CHW) program that employs mobile phone (mHealth) technologies to track and target care in partnership with medical professionals. Action for Health provides free, in-home preventive health outreach and in-clinic curative health services to nearly 2,000 children under age 5, and over 900 pregnant women each year.
In 2013, Mali Health also helped to construct a maternity ward to expand and facilitate maternal health services at the clinic. This project’s success marked another important step towards significantly improving maternal and child health outcomes.
In 2014 and beyond, the Mali Health team will expand its reach throughout Bamako by training other community leaders to address impediments to maternal and child health at the local level. We will continue to address, inform, and empower Mali’s slum residents to engage in collective activities that improve health outcomes. And, with the help of our partners, we will maintain our vital health services for Bamako’s poorest and most vulnerable populations through a collaborative development model.
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