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We are honored to serve as the lead organization for five partner sites representing the Compassionate Birth Network we convene. The Network, currently in 12 countries, has been creating a significant impact on the wellbeing of mothers, infants, and historically marginalized global communities since 2012 by focusing on the delivery of quality, respectful perinatal care and sexual & reproductive health services. Network partners are autonomous and led by their communities.

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Together we are poised to help end preventable maternal and infant deaths by ensuring greater access to culturally respectful, affordable health care and education by dramatically expanding local networks of birth centers, maternity waiting homes, and static or mobile community clinics. All partner communities are marginalized by poverty, and women and girls remain particularly vulnerable. Our partners have taken courageous stands against racial and ethnic bias toward Indigenous groups, discrimination toward people of different abilities, religions, and all other forms of inequities, mirroring Global Force for Healing’s values. We share a common commitment to service delivery for all regardless of ability to pay. 

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Note: Due to a submission error in the “Community Ownership” category of our application, we inadvertently repeated the answer for “Innovation”. Because we believe community ownership is a competitive strength of ours, we have included it here. We are also excited about our proposed strategies in the “Innovations” category, per the paragraphs below.

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Community Ownership

Our proposal is rooted in community ownership.  All care sites will continue to be built/strengthened at the invitation of the local communities.  When feasible, donations of local land are encouraged, not only as a cost saving for the implementing partner, but to secure and acknowledge community buy- in.  Community Advisory Committees will be set up or strengthened, with members representing the various stakeholder groups.  Youth, women, different religious organizations, differently-abled people, and folks from different educational backgrounds must all be represented. They will assist the implementing partners in choosing vendors and other collaborators on the ground, and hold meetings regularly. Persons from the different stakeholder groups in the community will be hired whenever possible, be it for construction work, administration of the care sites, or as healthcare providers. In addition, we will hire at least one marginalized person from each community as Quality Control Officer and Patient Advocate.

Innovation

By constructing and/or reinforcing complementary perinatal care sites in vulnerable communities and using a common monitoring and evaluation framework provided by the Good Birth Network software, we will be able to create and measure the scope of services and consequent reduction in mortality rates. Our strengths are our ability to collaboratively draw inferences and conclusions from sites in five different contexts, respond to challenges, and extrapolate lessons that can be applied to other locations globally. The inclusion of the mothers’ and staffs’ lived experiences regarding care will provide us with over 200,000 data points over five years through the digital exit surveys, all of which provide invaluable feedback to be incorporated into future service delivery. No other model in existence today merges such robust community engagement in real time, delivered by local professionals in marginalized contexts and backed with over 50 collective years of global maternal and infant health experience.