Micah 6:8

” And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

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

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Integrity

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Professional excellence

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Justice for the poor

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Human dignity

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Compassion

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Respect

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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.

We are currently planning to replicate the services that we provide by constructing a brand new maternal health centre at the village of Manchali ‘A’, Chamwino District, Arusha Region in Central Tanzania. We will shortly be inviting building contractors to submit bids for construction, and plan to open the new hospital in late 2025/early 2026.

Maternity Africa’s annual service delivery targets at Kivulini Maternity Centre 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.

Michael Hynds

(Country Director)

Michael comes from the United Kingdom. He is a Chartered Accountant with almost 30 years of financial accounting and related experience. Since 2013, he has worked almost exclusively in international relief and development settings, for consulting firms and international charities operating predominantly in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. Most recently, Michael has been based in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Tanzania at maternal health and education establishments. Michael graduated from the University of St Andrews in Scotland with an MA in Economics.

Michael is married to Maria. They have one daughter, Grace.