Anna is among the many women who attend Maternity Africa’s Kivulini Maternity Centre in northern Tanzania for maternal health services. She became a widow recently, and is now a mother of three children.
Since her husband died, her in-laws made Anna’s life incredibly uncomfortable and challenging. They called her bad names, and took things that she owned with her husband. They did not help her to look after the children, and nobody was there for her.
Anna decided to leave the in-laws and find her own life. She was already pregnant with her third child and worked in people’s homes attending to tasks such as washing clothes and doing other chores to earn a little money to buy food and pay rent. Unfortunately, she started being sick during her pregnancy, so she was admitted at Kivulini Maternity Centre. While she was with us her two children were with her neighbours, and later Anna’s mother took them to take care of them.
Anna had rented a room in an industrial area of nearby Arusha. Unfortunately, she was unable to pay the rent and was evicted. Maternity Africa’s social worker shared Anna’s story with colleagues, and some of them donated their own money to help find a single room for Anna to rent. The staff contributions paid for six months’ rent so that when she returned home from Kivulini Maternity Centre with her new baby, Anna at least had a simple place to stay. Maternity Africa also provided Anna with a simple food bundle to assist her because she had no food, and not even any money to buy some.
Later, Maternity Africa’s Social Worker thought of referring Anna to Neema Village, a local partner organisation that assists extremely destitute mothers. Thankfully, Neema Village accepted Anna, and helped her to establish a small business, enabling her to earn some money to take care of herself and her new baby.
Maternity Africa is delighted to have supported Anna and her new baby. It is great that she is now able to earn a little money for herself, especially because she had completely lost hope in life after the death of her husband.
Follow this link if you would like to help Maternity Africa provide good maternal healthcare care for destitute women like Anna. Thank you.