Maternal, Newborn, and Child Survival Initiative (MNCSI)



The Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival Initiative aims to reduce maternal and child mortality by training frontline health workers on care for pregnant women, newborns, and young children across South Sudan.

The greatest obstacle to quality maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) care in South Sudan is the lack of skilled MNCH care providers.  
According to UNFPA representatives, South Sudan has only 5 obstetrician/ gynecologists, 3 pediatricians, and 8 certified midwives.  This extreme lack of quality maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) care providers results in high infant, under-five and maternal mortality rates. 
Mwapusukeni. . .Thank God, you have survived

"When a woman gives birth, there are many places in Africa where they say, 'Mwapusukeni. . .Thank God, you have survived'", says Dr Thomas Burke, founder of Ujenzi Trust and Chief of the Division of Global Health and Human Rights in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. This 15-minute film offers a rare glimpse into remote villages in South Sudan as MGH teams lead innovative medical-training programs to reduce the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world.

Uploaded by  on May 26, 2011

To address this crisis, an innovative, rural-based program, GHHR has partnered with the government of South Sudan, bringing essential medical knowledge, supplies and skills to village midwives and birthing attendants. Employing local, “master trainers,” pictorial guides and medical kits with reusable supplies, GHHR provides sub-Saharan frontline health workers who lack reading skills, practical and sustainable ways to improve the odds for pregnant mothers and babies. Operating in seven of South Sudan’s ten states, the program focuses on developing immediate maternal, newborn and child emergency care solutions and future country-led success.


Challenge: Community health workers and village midwives provide the majority of health care in South Sudan. Until now, these frontline health workers have neither had access to formal education nor to medicines, medical infrastructure, or support networks. 

Solution: Provide necessary training and technologies that will improve the capabilities of frontline health workers at the community level.

Accomplishments to date:
  • One hundred and ten village midwives were successfully trained in newborn resuscitation in the regions around Wau and Malakal.
  • Each of the newly trained 110 village midwives received reusable essential equipment in order to successfully execute their newborn emergency care training.
  • From November 2010 until June 2011, the project is deploying "train the trainers and trainee" packages of basic MNCS emergency training, checklists, and provisions of basic re-usable commodities to 500 front line health workers.
  • $1,800 paid for 3 designers and graphic artists working 2 weeks full time on the MNCS training materials
  • $1,000 paid for 2 MNCS program laptops
  • $11,000 purchased 500 highly durable gooseneck solar energy lights for the frontline health workers in the MNCS Initiatives (for delivering babies and providing other care, when dark)


UBT: Saving Women's Lives

Ujenzi has been working hard to promote a cheap life-saving technology shown to successfully arrest postpartum hemorrhage-- uterine balloon tamponade. Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of pregnancy-related death, claiming the lives of 130,000 women a year and disabling twenty times that number. In low-resource areas in which medication and surgical intervention are unavailable, uterine balloon tamponade can mean the difference between life and death for women suffering from bleeding uncontrolled by first-line interventions. The MGH Division of Global Health and Human Rights, along with many partners, has developed and is currently validating an ultra low-cost uterine balloon consisting of materials available in even poorly-resourced healthcare settings. Watch our video illustrating the difference that this technology is making in our partner communities.