Our approach
Engage communities
We approach community engagement in two ways – Village Health Committees (VHC) for health education and household livelihood strengthening and Community Health Workers. The VHC is a community monitoring system that generates data on the maternal and child health activities and changes in the community.
strengthen referral
systems
We connect communities to health facilities to improve emergency care. We establish a two-way facility-community referral system ensuring that clients have access to and receive needed clinical health services as well as follow-up support for health and other urgent wrap around care and support.
build
clinical
capacity
We support continuous training of healthcare professionals to provide quality medical care. Ensuring health centres are suitably equipped to provide safe deliveries, individualized quality medical care and improving referral systems between health centres and hospitals.
Applying the Three Delays Model
Transforming maternal and child health care delivery to reach every woman and newborn
We tackle the “Three Delays” that lead to preventable deaths by integrating modern healthcare practices with indigenous knowledge through our Proactive Doorstep Care (PDC) model.
Through home visits, we identify and address the underlying causes of poor maternal and child health outcomes. Our dedicated Community Health Workers and Nurses on Bikes deliver holistic support to ultra-poor households, fostering social stability and improved health outcomes for mothers and children.
We focus on the root causes rather than just treating the symptoms. We are confident in our ability to sustain operations while advancing our scale plans over the next seven years (2024–2030).
Delay 1: Decision to seek care.
Community engagement - Community Health Workers
We provide communities (men and women) with information on pregnancy, childbirth and newborn health care so they know when to seek medical help.
We facilitate income generation activities for women to enable them to become financially independent and empowered to make decisions about their own sexual and reproductive health and to become co-managers in their care process.
Delay 2: reaching care.
Strengthening referral systems through transportation
We improve access to healthcare with the provision of Nurses on Bikes (NoBs) in remote areas as well as Mobile Clinics to provide care.
We support waiting houses next to health centres for expectant mothers to stay in before their due date so when they go into labour assistance is on site.
We provide village ambulance services for emergency transportation of pregnant women to improve access to Health Centres.
Delay 3: receiving adequate health care.
Building clinical capacity of primary level health facilities
We support continuous personal development for midwives, nurses and clinicians.
We ensure health centres are suitably equipped to provide safe deliveries (sufficient medical supplies, equipment, medications) and Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care.
We improve referral capacity to support transfers to higher-level care (availability of ambulances).
Our Golden Rule
Every woman in Malawi should be able to reach a primary level health facility in times of emergency within 60 minutes.