The Wellbeing Foundation Africa’s Founder-President, H.E. Mrs. Toyin Saraki – who also serves as Champion for the Global White Ribbon Alliance and Board Chair of the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria, has commended the organization for the Respectful Maternity Care program recently concluded in Kwara State, Nigeria.
A pregnant woman asks questions on RMC during Respectful Maternity Care Training Program in ilorin Kwara State Nigeria
Receiving the White Ribbon Alliance’s newly published Respectful Maternity Care training manual, which is supported by the USAID/Health Policy Project, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa Country Director, Dr. Luther-King Fasehun, stated, “At the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, we applaud the Respectful Maternity Care program developed by the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria (WRAN). We are especially proud to be partners and supporters of WRAN in this cause, helping to ensure that Kwara State constitutes a good launch pad for the program in Nigeria. We will continue to work collaboratively, with WRAN and other stakeholders on programs and policies that respond to the needs of childbearing women in Nigeria.”
In response to the release of the first Nigerian focused health worker training guide on Respectful Maternity Care, Mrs. Felicity Ukoko, Wellbeing Foundation Africa Programs Head, likewise stated, “The training guide will no doubt serve as a vital tool for the midwifery workforce that will enhance the quality and safety of care that women and their families receive.” Commending the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria on the success of the Respectful Maternity Care program, the Founder-President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, H.E. Mrs. Toyin Saraki, further reinforced the importance of dignified care – especially during childbirth, while expressing the need for pregnant women and healthcare workers alike to be informed of the rights and values that contribute to the delivery of quality maternity care during the prenatal, delivery and post-natal period.
Wellbeing Foundation Africa Founder – President HE Mrs Toyin Saraki with Midwives of the International Confederation of Midwives
In August 2013, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, working in conjunction with the White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria, hosted the first ever Kwara State Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Respectful Maternity Care Stakeholder Dialogue Meeting in Ilorin, Kwara State, to improve the interpersonal rapport between health workers and their clients, and highlight the relationship between the quality of maternity care and the effects it has on mother and child from conception to delivery and beyond. This meeting, an integral part of the successful Respectful Maternity Care program, also served to address the under-utilization of public health facilities and the communication gap between healthcare professionals and expectant mothers.
About the Wellbeing Foundation Africa:
Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA) is a pan African organisation seeking to create real and sustainable change for families by working with communities across the continent to build capacities and empower women. Through their projects, they give people across Africa the ability to seek better lives for themselves and for their communities.
WBFA achieves this goal by forming strategic partnerships and engaging local and international stakeholders while providing practical support interventions and tools such as the WBFA IMNCH Personal Health Record©. Committed to health, education, women’s empowerment and social welfare, WBFA, founded by Her Excellency Mrs. Toyin Saraki in 2003, promotes MNCH through the UN’s Every Woman Every Child effort, diverse multi-sector initiatives, and advocacy campaigns including the UN Millennium Development Goals Countdown to 2015.
About White Ribbon Alliance:
The White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) is an international movement consisting of diverse organisations and individuals working to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for all women and children. For the past decade, WRA’s rapidly growing network has been amplifying the voices of women and their communities. WRA has now become a leader among those holding governments and institutions to account for maternal mortality. In Nigeria, the Alliance consists of over 780 organisational and individual members across 29 states and the FCT. The White Ribbon Alliance Nigeria (WRAN) is officially affiliated with the global White Ribbon Alliance consisting of thousands of members in over 105 countries. WRAN has developed a history of bringing together stakeholders from diverse sectors with the common purpose of decreasing maternal mortality that occurs during pregnancy and childbirth. Last year alone, WRAN conducted several programs including a panel discussion focused on government accountability and a rally which called for the recruitment, training and deployment of more health workers in Nigeria. In 2011, WRAN also produced a simplified version of the National Health Bill making the bill more comprehensible to the layman thereby empowering the Nigerian populace.
For more information, please visit http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org.