Our campaign featured in Newsweek!
http://www.newsweek.com/30-pink-cellphone-could-help-save-lives-pregnant-women-272768
Summary
Every year 300,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth, mostly in developing countries. Why does this happen? Two big reasons are lack of information and lack of access to care. In our world, these are just a phone call away...
But here's another fact: 96% of the world's population is covered by mobile phone networks. So what if we could make access to pregnancy information and care a phone call away for pregnant women in developing countries too?
Here's our answer: We can. 'Zero Mothers Die' is a new global project to deliver mobile phones and connections to pregnant women in developing countries to help reduce maternal mortality.
How do we achieve this? We equip vulnerable pregnant women with mobile phones so they can receive important healthy pregnancy and childbirth information in their own language via text and voice messaging campaigns. We also give the women free airtime so they can call local health workers during emergencies. The mobile phones, called Mum's Phones, are uniquely designed for pregnant women.
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The first country to launch Zero Mothers Die is Ghana, and we're in the planning phases in Mali, Gabon, Rwanda and Zambia. We use partnerships to bring together government agencies with mobile network operators and other key local partners to build a sustainable Zero Mothers Die project in each country — but we need your help to ensure the women we need to reach have a mobile phone...
Help Us Achieve Our Goal - Buy a Mum's Phone!
Buy a Mum's Phone to give pregnant women access to pregnancy information and healthcare.
The Mum's Phone will allow the pregnant woman to:
- Receive text and voice messages containing important healthy pregnancy, childbirth and childcare information in her local language.
- Call her local health worker or healthcare center during emergencies or ask about warning signs.
- Help increase mobile phone ownership levels among women in developing countries.
Want to have double (or even triple!) the impact?
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Buy a Mum's Phone + 9 months of Airtime so a pregnant woman can call her local health worker or healthcare center for free during her pregnancy, giving her access to emergency care at her fingertips.
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Buy a Mum's Phone + a unique Solar Panel Charger designed especially for the project that allows a pregnant woman to keep her phone charged and accessible. It can also help others in the community to charge their phones!
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Buy the whole 'Mobile Maternal Health Kit', which includes all of the above (Mum's Phone + 9 months of Airtime + Solar Power Charger).
- Help fund our project work in the field! This money will go towards creating the healthy pregnancy information service (content and audios) in more languages, training local health workers to identify pregnancy warning signs and register pregnant women in the project, running the messaging software platform, bringing Zero Mothers Die to more countries, and more.
Impact: Improving Maternal Health Where It's Needed Most
Improving maternal health is one of the key UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are due at the end of 2015. With less than 500 days left until the deadline, help countries to reach this goal by contributing to our campaign! After all, there's proof that mobile technologies can improve maternal health in developing countries - see our Project Document for more info.
KEY IMPACT: By giving funds to our campaign, you would be making a tangible contribution to help save a woman at risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth by giving her the tools to receive information and access care during emergencies.
Challenges & Solutions
Like any other project, our project faces challenges too. We outline some of our main challenges below, with our solutions to overcome them:
Challenge: Logistics of delivering the mobile phones and making sure they get in the right hands.
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Solution: We aim to solve this by working with government health district authorities to ensure the phones go from health workers directly into the hands of women who register for the project.
Challenge: Making sure the phones are used by the pregnant women, and not by others.
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Solution: To solve this, we've designed a unique mobile phone called Mum's Phone, to help avoid people stealing the phones and reselling them. These phones are recognizable and clearly marked for the project, as you can see in the images! We will work with local authorities to raise awareness in the community that these phones are for pregnant women and mothers.
Challenge: Making sure the airtime is used by women to call only health workers or healthcare facilities.
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Solution: Our mobile network partner, Airtel, will restrict the numbers that can be dialed from the phones to only those of health workers and healthcare facilities, meaning the free airtime cannot be used to call other numbers!
Challenge: Ensuring that women can understand the healthy pregnancy messages, no matter what their literacy level is.
- Solution: We're working with Ghana's Ministry of Health to have audios of the content available in local languages so the women can receive voice messages.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't contribute right now, we understand! There are other great ways you can still help us achieve our goal by:
- Sharing our campaign with your friends, family and colleagues using the Indiegogo share buttons under our video above or emailing this page.
Whether you are a mom or have a mom, please consider saving another mom's life by contributing to our campaign!
Join the ranks of our Champion Supporters by buying a Mum's Phone:
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[in the photo: Catherine Kaseba Sata and Sylvia Bongo Ondimba (First
Ladies of Zambia and Gabon), Cherie Blair, Gabriela Isler (Miss
Universe), Michel Sidibe (Executive Director of UNAIDS) and many more]
We send our sincerest thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and share our campaign, and especially to those who have contributed to helping us achieve that 'Zero Mothers Die' through buying a Mum's Phone!
THANK YOU!
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About the Zero Mothers Die Partnership:
The Zero Mothers Die partnership includes key organizations who are serious about bringing technology to vulnerable pregnant women to help save their lives. Our partners include UNAIDS, Airtel, Advanced Development for Africa, Millennia2025 Foundation, UniversalDoctor Project, The People's Vision, Global Partnerships Forum, ZMQ, Ministries of Health, and more.
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