My first trip to the field

The DAPP truck rattled over dusty red-dirt roads surrounded by fields of savannah grasslands as I traveled with Matimba to the Makafu school in the Munkochi. Matimba is a Programme Officer, in charge of the Child Aid project in Munkochi and we were headed to a community workshop led by Mudsta-Kunda, an area leader in Munkochi. After an hour of travel, we were about 40km away from the town of Kapiri Mposhi and arrived at a village school.

Students dressed in their uniforms were playing in a nearby field and others were studying when we arrived. Matimba and I entered an empty classroom where Mudsta-Kunda was leading a health workshop on maternal health, infant care and HIV/AIDS for 14 members from villages in the Munkochi community.

All village members attending the workshop are Village Action Group coordinators in their communities. They volunteer to work with DAPP to learn about practices that will improve their communities and train others in new practices.

In this workshop all 14 members of the community took several hours from their day—even though it is the harvest season—to learn about child care and maternal health during pregnancy and after birth. Infant mortality here is 182 deaths before the age of five per every 1000 children born and 73 mothers die from complications related to child birth per 1000 children born.

I sat with Matimba on the grass as the community members were being broken into groups. Mudsta-Kunda asked them to list danger signs of an unhealthy baby. Together they identified the risk factors and a representative from each group shared their knowledge with the rest of the group. The groups correctly identified most warning signs and Mudsta-Kunda only added two additional factors that they were unaware of.

I was impressed to see their level of commitment to improving the health in their community. They moved onto discussion of prevention of transmission of HIV from mothers to children and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Each one of these community representatives will lead five Village Action Groups of 20 people organized into committees around agriculture, hygiene, health and child development.

“The village coordinators, they love doing this work for their community” Matimba told me. Matimba, Mudsta-Kunda and I left the school in the afternoon back over the roads as we passed huts with thatched roofs and some with tin roofs not far from the road. The community leaders returned to their villages ready to share the knowledge that will help save mothers’ and children’s lives.