Micah 6:8
About Maternity Africa
Maternity Africa is based in Arusha Region, Northern Tanzania. It seeks to improve maternal health outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized women and girls of childbearing age living in poverty across rural Tanzania.
Maternity Africa has a formal agreement with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC) to provide medical services on its behalf. Maternity Africa also has a Memorandum of Understanding with Arusha District Council to provide maternal health services, free of charge to vulnerable and marginalized women. Maternity Africa also works with other non-government organisations (NGOs) to provide free of charge, good quality evidence-based maternal health services and advocate for women’s health and wellbeing.
Maternity Africa’s base at Kivulini Maternity Centre strives towards being a ‘centre of excellence’ that also strengthens the knowledge, skills, experience, competence and confidence of national health care workers. It does this through training and mentoring of staff engaged in service delivery. Maternity Africa also offers placements for tertiary level students from some of Tanzania’s universities and colleges.
Maternity Africa offers prevention of and treatment for obstetric fistula. Prevention services are provided through maternity care for early pregnancy complications, antenatal, birthing and postnatal care. This includes 24-hour obstetric emergency cover and on-site transitional neonatal care for newborn babies. Fistula treatment services are provided through surgical intervention for fistula and other birth-induced injuries. Maternity Africa also offers a comprehensive family planning service to inpatients and the local community.
Maternity Africa is registered in Tanzania as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), under the the terms and conditions of the Non Governmental Orgaizations Act, 2002. It has registration number 00NGO/R2/000524.
The Vision
Maternity Africa’s vision is to make childbirth safe for every woman. Our prayer is ‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.’
The Mission
Maternity Africa is a Christian-based organization that endeavours to provide fistula treatment and quality maternity care for all marginalized women throughout Tanzania. It does this through clinical excellence and in the example of displaying love, kindness and compassion regardless of race, religion or ethnicity.
Our Values
Integrity
Professional excellence
Justice for the poor
Human dignity
Compassion
Respect
Honesty
Maternity Africa’s History
First established in 2013, Maternity Africa has been involved in improving maternal health outcomes for women living in poverty in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Maternal healthcare projects currently operate in Tanzania as well as Ethiopia (Vision Maternity Care and Barbara May Maternity Hospital). Maternity Africa has also supported other projects by offering surgical expertise in Uganda, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Kenya.
Plans for the future
Our base at Kivulini Maternity Centre in Tanzania is recognised in the community as a hub for quality maternity services and we actively seek to equip, empower and enable women to access appropriate reproductive health services. Through collaborations with local government-run health facilities and other NGOs, we seek to increase Tanzania’s capacity to deliver quality, evidence-based maternal care. A current focus is our plan to design and deliver a series of six-week skills development programmes for birth attendants working at other, less-equipped facilities.
Maternity Africa’s annual service delivery targets are for up to:
Fistula 0perations
Family planning consultations
Baby deliveries
Antenatal care visits
Dr Andrew Browning
(Founder)
Dr Browning is an Australian-trained gynaecologist. After qualifying with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, he joined the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in 2001 where he served as as a staff specialist, treating obstetric fistula patients and running the training programme. In 2006, Dr Browning established the first outreach fistula hospital in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. In 2011, he moved to Tanzania where he founded Maternity Africa.
Dr Browning also founded Vision Maternity Care, an Ethiopian charity that builds, runs and upgrades maternity hospitals. The organisation provides safe obstetric care to thousands of women each year. He has a keen interest in research and has published numerous papers, and consults on obstetric-fistula related issues for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). He is married to Stephanie and has two sons.
Monica
Monica Ndege
(Country Director)
Monica is registered in Tanzania as a nurse and a midwife and has over 30 years of professional experience. Monica has a Bachelor of Arts in Theology and a masters degree in Psychology. She worked with Medical Missionary of Mary Sisters, Diocese of Bomfin and Arch Diocese of Salvador in Brazil, the Arch Diocese of Arusha (Tanzania) and World Vision International. She has wide experience of working across Kenya, Tanzania, Ireland, Brazil and North America, where she was involved in health, community development and personal development.
Monica’s greatest passion is youth and children. For many years, she has been involved in children and youth ministries where she offers physical, spiritual and psychological services, bringing healing to their bodies and lives.
Until recently, Monica worked with World Vision Tanzania and the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute as a part-time community development consultant and trainer. She consults on Empowered World View, Celebrating Families and Channels of Hope – Child Protection, Occupational Health and Project Management.
Monica is interested in gender equality as both an end in itself, and as a means of improving family income, health and nutrition.
Kivulini
Latest news
People
Work at Kivulini
Rare occurrence – husband attends birth
Meet Neema (27) and husband Sudi (31). Neema is a housewife and Sudi works in a factory at the village of Kisongo, close to Kivulini Maternity Centre. They have a three-year-old child.Sudi agreed with his wife that during delivery he would like to be with her to offer...
Help a young mum like Amina to give birth safely
This is Amina, who is 16 years old. She comes from a village close to Kivulini Maternity Centre. She delivered her firstborn, a son with Maternity Africa. Amina just completed primary school. The man who got her pregnant abandoned her after her first month of...
Safe delivery for Nembris after three deaths
Nembris lost three of her babies. She used to deliver her babies at home, and they were very big when they were born. They did not survive because they were weak after delivery.Nembris is 26, and had one other baby living. She is the second of two wives. She arrived...
Triplets
Thurday 4 June was a special day at Maternity Africa’s Kivulini Maternity Centre, with healthy triplets born to Mary (31). Already a mother of two boys, Thursday’s delivery added two girls and another boy to Mary’s family. Mary has no job, and her husband does casual...
GlobalGiving appeal to help make childbirth safe
Maternity Africa is delighted to launch its latest appeal to help make childbirth safe for poor women and girls in rural Tanzania. Please follow this link http://goto.gg/47272 Thank you!
Over 200 deliveries in one month for the first time
Maternity Africa hit a new record of 231 deliveries in May 2020 - almost double the number in May 2019 (119) and over 60 more than last month (169). This indicates the huge and immense effort from all of Maternity Africa's dedicated staff, even with all of the social...
International Day to End Obstetric Fistula: Eradicating Obstetric Fistula During COVID-19
For International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, Maternity Africa's Founder, Dr Andrew Browning AM, shares some of his thoughts on the challenges facing fistula treatment during the Covid-19 pandemic: https://www.figo.org/eradicating-obstetric-fistula-during-covid-19...
Celebrating International Nurses Day
Celebrating International Nurses Day earlier this week, Maternity Africa's Kivulini Maternity Centre continued providing pre- and post-natal care, and delivering babies. Pictured is Rozalia, one of our nurses, who also celebrated with others in the nearby city of...
Openness, care and continuous improvement
Maternity Africa recently hired a new doctor-in-charge at Kivulini Maternity Centre. After his orientation, he formalised a system of morning reporting. In attendance each day are the clinical supervisors, doctors, Country Director, matron, nurse training facilitator...
Rehema
This is Rehema, forty years old and the third of three wives. Her husband is 70 years old. She lives around 120 kilometres from Maternity Africa's Kivulini Maternity Centre, and decided to come here to have her baby because she heard that it is a safe place to...
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
Maternity Africa recognises the great challenge that governments, donors, other employers, workers and communities are facing worldwide to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Today is the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Working with some generous donors, Maternity...
Saving a mother’s life
Sometimes Maternity Africa's clinical staff must deal with emergency, life-threatening situations. Nayo (30) is the mother of four children and lives with her husband. She attended school until grade seven, but her education stopped then because her parents could not...
Support
Become a donor
Become a volunteer
Maternity Africa | Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Sitemap | Done by Elixir-Tek