Submitted by Manal Alfred, USAID/Egypt
On October 21, USAID/Egypt Director James Bever and Dr. Hassan Sallam, Director of the Suzanne Mubarak Regional Center for Women’s Health and Development (SMC) participated in the graduation ceremony of a mix of 31 Afghan Midwives of various ages and from various provinces. The Midwives attended the training program at the SMC in Alexandria and it was funded through the Health Services Support Project, implemented by USAID/Afghanistan.
Afghan midwives with their Egyptian trainer at the end of the USAID/Afghanistan funded capacity building training held in Egypt. Photo Credit: USAID/Egypt
The SMC was selected as a training provider for its excellent results in the areas of women’s health and development in Egypt and in neighboring countries. The SMC is the lead partner organization for the USAID/Egypt funded Global Initiative for Breast Cancer Awareness. The training focused on the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to provide care to Afghani women with the ultimate goal of ensuring safe motherhood.
In his remarks during the event, the USAID/Egypt Director lauded Egypt as it has achieved its Millennium Development Goal Number 4 of reducing the under-five mortality rate by two thirds between 1990 and 2015 and it is approaching the achievement of MDG 5 in reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. “Egypt is now leveraging those achievements by hosting training programs like these where our Egyptian counterparts can share valuable lessons learned and effective practices with efficient health practitioners from Afghanistan to improve health not only in Egypt, but around the world.”
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Educational efforts like USAID’s training for midwives is an essential way America can get involved in furthering other country’s growth. One of the most important and empowering tools in today’s world is access to knowledge; especially when this increased access is given to women. These efforts are similar to Text4Baby- a mobile information service that promotes maternal and child health. Text4Baby is an education service that provides pregnant women and new moms with information about taking care of themselves and their newborns; telling them what to expect in terms of health and child development. Educational impact like this is not something that is done alone; which is why partnerships between America and other countries is so important. At a Text4Baby conference with American and Russian representatives; the Russians were impressed that the Americans could implement such a powerful program for free- and the Americans were impressed that Russians have been able to reduce their infnat mortality rates by 50% because of health care developments. This, and the above article make it clear that countries have much to learn from each other in terms of how to make the greatest total impact. Combining the experiences from midwives in Afghanistan and the cultural knowledge they bring, with the education resources provided by America and other partnering countries; more comprehensive solutions, education and progress can be made. It would be nice to see more partnering between countries that have expertise and experience in particular fields to spread the wealth of knowledge among nations.
Any effort to decrease the mortality rate of babies or people during pregnancy or childbirth has my support. Reaching countries with less awareness of modern methods and techniques can definitely help save lives. A program like this should definitely be supported globally.