Mama Kwanza program gets CIDA funding boost

Nurses (L-R) Miranda Weeb and Jennifer Marlin worked with the Mother First Initiative in Tanzania. Taken Jan. 10, 2013. Karin Yeske/News Talk Radio

U of S nursing leads mother p

rogram in Tanzania

Mama Kwanza program gets CIDA funding boost

Reported by Lasia Kretzel

Posted: Jan 11, 2013.

Keeping with its commitment to maternal, newborn, and child health, the federal government announced its support for a Saskatchewan-based initiative on Thursday.

Senator Raynell Andreychuk, on behalf of Minister of International Cooperation Julian Fantino, announced a more than $2.5 million Canadian International Development Agency grant for the Saskatchewan-led Mama Kwanza Socio-Economic and Health Initiative in Tanzania.

The one-year-old program seeks to improve the access and quality of local health services and social programs for mothers and families in the continent’s eastern country.

University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing professor and program head, Pammla Patrucka, said the funding will go a long way to improving services and accessibility.

“We’re aiming for about 3,000 women over the next three years that may have never been able to access health care for themselves or for their children,” Patrucka said. “So I think that’s an amazing gift through this Canadian funding."

The funding will also increase the number of Mama Kwanza (Mother First) clinics from one to six and allows the program to provide additional maternal and newborn services and social programs, Patrucka said.

Social programs will focus on AIDS prevention, birth control, birth spacing, and nutrition programs. Tanzania’s leading causes of death in children are pneumonia and diarrhea however AIDS rates among the population have declined over the past several years.

Nursing graduate Miranda Weeb was part of one of the first groups of students to travel to Tanzania and work with the program.

“It’s life changing just seeing how people’s lives are changed and for the better,” she said “I was able to be a part of something that we could never imagine [being] this big.”

The University of Saskatchewan is one of 15 universities selected by CIDA to implement 17 projects around the world. Recipients will work with local organizations to ensure results benefit those in need and assist in community development.

The total CIDA funding will be distributed over three years.

“Our government is working with Canadian universities to deliver tangible results for those most in need around the world,” said Andreychuk. “By tapping into the expertise of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada will prevent avoidable maternal and child deaths in Tanzania.”

With help from the Regina Qu’ Appelle Health Region, SaskTel, the University of Saskatchewan and Coutts Courier, the programs total funding will increase to more than $3.6 million, a number that Patrucka said she is humbled by.

Being able to take this forward is really a big step forward for us,” she said.

“It’s about women first because that’s what Mama Kwanza means."

-with files from News Talk Radio's Karin Yeske

http://ckom.com/story/u-s-nursing-leads-mother-program-tanzania/91176