50% of SFH’s programme beneficiaries are the poor.

50% of rural pregnant women and children under 5 sleep under long lasting insecticide treated nets in at least two focus states.
Modern contraceptive prevalence rate increases from 11% to 16%.

Consistent condom use among high risk groups increases by 20%.

SFH MISSION

Society for Family Health has a mission to empower Nigerians, particularly the poor and vulnerable to lead healthier lives...more 

GATES GOOD IN GOMBE

SFH Nigeria recently hosted representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as staff members from the foundation’s Maternal & Neonatal Child Health project in Gombe in a three day working meeting to discuss expansion and scale up of the current project.
SFH Nigeria embarked on this partnership with Population Services International (PSI) and Transaid to bring Maternal and Neonatal care to women and newborns in Gombe in March 2010 and has till date seen varying levels of success in all the activities across Gombe State. The intervention utilizes significant models: working with trained Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) volunteers, working with trained volunteers from the Federation of Muslim Women Association Nigeria (FOMWAN), the National Road and Transport Union (NURTW) and the Call Center.
At the meeting, SFH Nigeria Corporate Communications staff enjoyed the rare opportunity of direct one-on-one interviews with programme staff from Gombe. Here are some excerpts:

The Gombe Story
Rahila: We work in six local government areas of Balanga, Yamaltu Deba and Kaltungo – where the trained TBA volunteers are present and Shongom, Dukku and Kwani have FOMWAN and TBA volunteers. In these local governmens areas women who were TBAs were identified by the communites and trained. “The training is skill oriented because initially there were bad practices which the TBAs in the area engage in to conduct delivery such as using of their bare hands to receive delivery, after delivery they pour cold water on the baby, for the cord care they put cow dung or hot charcoal; there are many  things that need to be corrected, that is why they were trained.”

Habiba: We conducted advocacy visits at the start of the project; after selecting and training FOMWAN volunteers, we held an open community meeting to introduce the project and new volunteers. “We trained them to do home based visits that is home-to-home where they advice the pregnant mothers, conduct post-natal visits and the advice on the involvement of males in the delivery process; because in my side the problem is that the male community and the in-laws do not allow the women to attend antenatal care, so we involve the male group so that they can understand the importance of the process. We also trained the volunteers on how to fill MIS forms to record their activities.”
Fatima: “The Call Center is situated in the Gombe Specialist Hospital. We developed a database after some fact finding. The database is based on maternal and neonatal conditions, that is, the pregnancy period: first to third trimester, during labor, premium delivery and neonate care. When people call we answer questions and then input the data and at the end of the month, we generate information received from the callers. The languages currently used are English and Hausa.” 

The impact of the Bill and Melinda Gates project and the future of Gombe and North East Nigeria
Rahila: “I am feeling very positive. Before the training only 33% of pregnant women had deliveries in health facilities; now we encourage them to go for antenatal care, to go for hospital care and to visit a health facility if there are danger signs. It has been successful because we are seeing results and we are working on how to expand.”
Habiba: “There is big progress in Gombe because before our women, especially on the Fulani side, were not allowed to attend antenatal care, deliver in hospitals or even immunize their children; but through the intervention in that area, there is now more enlightenment and awareness of the importance of attending immunization, antenatal and hospital delivery. The project is good and many people will enjoy it because we will save more lives of women and babies as we spread all over North East Nigeria. So it is fantastic.”
Fatima: “There has been so much impact; before men were calling on behalf of their wives but with enlightenment and posters, women have started calling as well. So far so good, the call center is really helping the people to call especially the toll free line which has increased accessibility for those who live in rural areas.”

These three northern women, who have dedicated time to making a change in Gombe, have several years of experience of providing care to women and children. Each of them has served as a nurse, midwife, and in critical areas of public health.
The project, in November 2010, produced Gombe state’s first Maternal and Neo-natal Health Call Center; in line with the project’s objectives which are to improve the supply of maternal and neo-natal health products, test three models for improving maternal and neo-natal health interventions in the home and to build key stakeholder buy-in as well as develop a strategy to scale up successful approaches. So far the project has seen great success in the state of Gombe while anticipating expansion to other parts of North East Nigeria.

“Society for Family Health Nigeria… Creating Change, Enhancing Lives”