Gidado Sulieman Farfaru
The majority of the inhabitants of the rural Nigerian village of Zadam live in absolute poverty, which is largely due to their inability to yield crops on the infertile and that they inhabit. The people of Zadam were forced to relocate from an agriculturally blessed area to their current home, and as a result they lost the ability to produce both crops for consumption and income generating crops. This relocation had a detrimental impact as it significantly increased levels of poverty, hardships on women and children, malnutrition, and unemployment within the community, These factors, along with a poor road network, inadequate education and far distance from medical facilities, contributes to the high incidence of maternal death in the area. For years, Gidado successfully engaged the people of Zandam, mobilizing them to improve their livelihoods and their community. However, this was not enough. He realized that the women of Zandam’s lives were at risk and he took action to change that.
I was shocked to realize that maternal deaths in Zandam were cased by poverty, illiteracy and harmful traditional practices. Many village mothers could not afford or were not aware of obstetric medical treatment. Alarmed to learn how many mothers in Zandam were dying as a result of improper treatment, I resolved to address these issues and improve the lives of the women of Zandam. My organization, the Zandam Area Development Association (ZADA), was already well-established and had a strong history of implementing projects in the region, but never any projects of this scope. Neither my staff nor I had any background in safe health practices or reproductive heath.
Recognizing the need for understanding reproductive health issues to address them and foster change in my community, I turned to LDM for help. My initial training as a Leadership Fellow was an ‘Advocacy for Reproductive Health’ course in Nairobi, Kenya. This training gave me much needed information and the confidence to combat maternal mortality at home.
With a $2,000 mini-grant from LDM, a team and I underwent a study tour to Fumel in Jigawa State, Nigeria to learn about Safe Motherhood Initiatives (SMI).Fumel has a similar background, social norms, and social values as our community. Thus, through exposure to their programs we gained some skills, knowledge, and a change in attitude about Emergency Maternal Care (EMC) and Safe Motherhood Initiate that we could apply back home.
The main program that we observed was organized by the Partnership for Transforming Health System (PATHS) in collaboration with Jigawa State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development in April of 2008. In this program, the community members were trained on symptoms of pregnancy, identifying and explaining impending problems in pregnancy and finding solutions to any identified problems. Furthermore, women were trained as community identifiers, on methods of revenue generation, on the formation of blood donors groups, and drivers were trained on how to transport women in labor to the hospital.
The tour helped us in identifying some measures to be considered in tackling these problems in Zandam. We aimed to enable many poor rural women access to obstetric and gynecology treatment during emergencies and to reduce maternal mortality as mush as possible in Zandam and the surrounding areas significantly by 2010. With the remaining LDM funding, I established a micro-loan project to provide poor women with emergency obstetric treatment.
It was clear that collaboration was vital to making this project successful, so I turned to other organizations to assist with conducting in-depth trainings. We partnered with the Hospital Friends Committee, an association made up of medical doctors, traditional rulers, religious leaders and philanthropists. With enthusiastic support for the micro-loan and training plan, the Committee offered financial assistance as well as the invaluable technical expertise of its members to enhance the training of blood donors. We now have nine volunteers, including myself, who are always ready to donate a blood in need of emergency.
As word of the project spread, doctors and staff from the Jibia General Hospital offered their services to the project. One local philanthropist, Malam Babangida Dogon Dutsi Zandam, volunteered his pick-up truck for mothers in need of emergency treatment. The truck provides an essential, life-saving means for transporting women from Zandam to the nearest hospital, more than 18 kilometers away.
With growing community support for the project, I turned my focus to the local government leaders, who had concerns about the political affiliations of the project and its supporters. Convincing the officials that my organization is non-governmental, non-partisan, non-profit took time. After a very concerted effort to inform officials about the need and neutrality of the project, the officials threw their full support behind their activities.
The collaboration between ZADA, the Hospital Friends Committee, Jibia General Hospital and the local government proved to be a transformative and effective partnership. The micro-loan system and community seminars were successfully launched and have had a clear impact on the Zandam village area.
- Micro-loans have been extended to 19 women requiring emergency obstetric treatment
- Men from 14 communities in the Zandam area have also agreed to support their wives in seeking ante- and post-natal treatment at local resource centers due to sensitization seminars
- Local youth have since formed three Blood Donor groups
- A team of experts from the department of medicine at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria offer free consultancy and medical services to the people of the community. They have donated $2,000,000 worth of medicine.
- We introduce a smoked fish training to both support the fisheries and stimulate nutrition status of women and children in the community
Continued Progress
The success of this program inspired me to do more to improve the community health of the Zandam area. To empower local women, I have organized four women's cooperative groups, each of which have used 60,000 Naira ($400 USD) in micro-loans for income-generating enterprises. These cooperatives have received capacity building trainings from ZADA to help them develop the skills they need to create and market groundnut oil.
We are in the process of creating a collaborative avenue between several local and regional NGOs. The NGOs are working together to create a functional literacy program that will be inaugurated in 2010. This initiative aims to educate women with reading, writing, arithmetic and computer processing skills.
ZADA continues to expand efforts to curb maternal mortality in and around Zandam. The organization, with the support of many donors, is building a maternal and child health center, which will provide another resource to improve the health and lives of women in the community. The maternity centre shall be a public/private partnership between Zandam Area Development Association, Jibia Local Government, a pharmaceutical company and Katsina State Primary Health Care development agency.
Networking for Change
I am a member of the Network of Islamic Scholars and Traditional Leaders of Northern Nigeria, which is an advocacy network formed by LDM in Nigeria. The network plays a significant role in promoting maternal health through advocating to the Northern Governors, Northern Emirs, Renown Religious Leaders and other stake holders in North of Nigeria.
I am also the secretary of the Katsina State Leadership Fellows Network, who has paid numerous advocacy visits to the stake holder Ministries (Women Affairs, Health, Primary Health Care Development Agencies, Her Excellency, State House of Assembly) to promote maternal health. As a result of this advocacy, the Katsina State Government purchased Mobile Ambulances for thirty-six local government of Katsina State to use in remote rural areas to enhance maternal health care and delivery services.