In collaboration with the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW), local and international partners such as White Ribbon Alliance, Doris Mollel Foundation, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Youth Park, schools, orphanages, and communities, we implement community-based interventions in underserved communities within and outside Dar es Salaam.
CSI Tanzania programs include:
1. Donation of sterile childbirth kits containing basic and necessary medical supplies such as gloves, scalpel & more; IV fluids, and oxytocin–a life-saving drug to health facilities to save mothers from post-partum hemorrhage (excessive bleeding after birth). This not only helps the pregnant women who are unable to afford basic medical supplies to deliver in a health facility but also the nurses and midwives who often lack supplies and medicines to provide adequate services. Saving Lives at Birth program educates and informs pregnant women, their partners, and communities on the various reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health interventions for example importance of child immunization, quality nutrition, role of men in improving maternal health, and delivery with a skilled birth attendant.
2. Reach out to school children with age-appropriate messages on sanitation, hygiene, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, disease prevention and more through CSI's Keeping Youth Healthy, Alive, Informed (HAI) program. This program is conducted mostly in schools with the involvement of teachers.
3. Focusing on the adolescent girl-child, CSI recognizes the girl-child is exceptionally vulnerable in many ways and developed an interactive and educational program just for girls - Girl Talk, Girl Power. The program focuses on taboo topics - menstruation, menstrual hygiene, sexual and reproductive health, with emphasis on education and acquiring essential life-skills. At the end of each session, CSI distributes feminine hygiene products to help girls stay in school. This program is also known as CHIPUA, a Swahili word which means Sprout - we are planting the seeds of education, confidence, self-love, and self-reliance to sprout a generation of successful, productive, and healthy women.
4. As part of CSI's Saving Lives At Birth program, CSI offers Midwifery Professional Development to address the chronic shortage of skilled midwives, knowledge gaps in best practices, and lagging health system, which all contribute to high preventable maternal and neonatal deaths and disabilities. The CSI midwifery professional development short courses are intended to improve competency skills of midwives, to ensure midwives are using current and best practices to recognize danger signs, how to manage or de-escalate them to save life of Mom and Baby, and to provide respectful maternity care (RMC). The short courses are intended for licensed midwives working in health facilities in urban and rural areas. Under the leadership of Tanzania's midwifery guru - Mama Stella Mpanda, training will be conducted by Tanzania's finest team of midwives and will cover BEmONC, Newborn Resuscitation and Care, plus additional critical maternal-newborn care interventions by using modern technology, information, and state-of-the-art products. Click here for instructions and to complete our online application.
Every woman has a right to respectful, timely, and quality care during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. Every girl has a right to go to school and learn. Every newborn deserves a chance to live. Every girl and boy have equal rights to education and opportunities in life. CSI community-based efforts continue to contribute to achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and Tanzania's national health agenda to achieve a reduction in preventable maternal, newborn, child deaths and disabilities, especially in rural areas.
