Thank You: BBC Radio 4 Appeal Total Raised is £41,275
Rabiya with her daughter Fedila. The advice she received in her community health group, set up by Women and Children First, meant she knew what to do during her challenging childbirth.
“I am very grateful to my community health group for their role in saving my life.”
— Rabiya, mother of Fedila, group member from Ethiopia
In Ethiopia they say አመሰግናለሁ 'Ameseg-nalehu' – meaning thank you.
We want to show thanks to all of our supporters, and the wonderful BBC Radio 4 listeners who took time to share, respond and donate to our appeal, presented by comedian Sara Pascoe.
Thanks to your kindness and generosity, we have raised an incredible £41,275. The first £10,000 of donations were trebled through matched funding, provided by supporters of the charity.
Together, your support will help more of the charity’s work helping women through pregnancy and childbirth.
Your support means we can save more lives by setting up more community health groups, which will give women the skills and opportunities to take local action on issues that concern them.
Your donations will help our work in supporting the government of Ethiopia to establish life-saving, life changing community groups through the country’s health system. We are working across diverse types of communities within Ethiopia, including nomadic groups, who need different support to help them challenging to access health facilities.
Your support is also helping us train more public health specialists across Africa. This includes training we ran in Kenya in September, bringing together specialists from Tanzania, Malawi, and Uganda, who understand the local health systems and can become representatives and champions of our community health group approach.
We are training them with the skills and knowledge on running groups, whilst mentoring them to develop and support the positive power of groups – which we know can have the potential to halve maternal mortality and reduce newborn mortality by a third.
Your support will also help our work in Malawi, where we are running groups, which use the power of radio to bring together young women in rural communities to discuss health issues, including pregnancy and childbirth.
Thank you so much for joining us on the journey to improve women’s health.