Community Participation In Improving Access To Maternal, Newborn And Child Health For Vulnerable Populations

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General Information

Donor(s): PAI

Period: 1/7/2023 - 30/6/2024

Location: Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Thai Binh, Nghe An, Ho Chi Minh City, Gia Lai, Dak Lak

Implementer: Children and Youth Program

Mothers, infants, and children are among the most vulnerable groups needing healthcare. Proper care reduces mortality and promotes comprehensive health for children in the future. The PAI project by SCDI aims to improve this through training members of community-based organizations (CBOs) to identify barriers and find solutions to enhance healthcare access for mothers, infants, and children in vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Organized a consultation with CBOs and CMAT to assess healthcare access for vulnerable mothers, infants, and children.

This consultation identified several priority needs:

Providing knowledge on reproductive health and newborn care for groups with special medical conditions such as HIV, drug users, and those with limited access to information like ethnic minorities, the poor, and the illiterate
Prenatal and antenatal screening, nutrition counselling, vaccination, and other essential supplies during childbirth
Housing support for homeless mothers and children; Finding shelters or alternative caregivers in cases where the mother is unable to provide care
Providing milk for newborns from 0-18 months of HIV-positive mothers
Additional support for legal procedures for undocumented mothers to receive healthcare; free vaccinations for children and assistance in obtaining birth certificates for children of undocumented mothers; health insurance for mothers and children over six years old,...

These identified needs form the foundation for SCDI’s ongoing community-based interventions, aiming to enhance access to healthcare services for vulnerable mothers, infants, and children in the future.

Key results

The project held two Training of Trainers (TOT) sessions on maternal and adolescent health with 31 outreach workers including Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), Community Malaria Action Teams (CMAT), and volunteers experienced in working with vulnerable mothers and children.

The trained community leaders organized 50 group communication sessions on maternal, newborn and adolescent health, reaching 794 participants across six provinces: Hanoi, Hai Phong, Nghe An, Ho Chi Minh City, Gia Lai, and Dak Lak.

The most significant impact of the project was capacity-building within communities that had previously had limited exposure to these topics. The training content was entirely new to groups such as people living with HIV, drug users, sex workers, the urban poor, and ethnic minorities. It not only increased their understanding but also enabled them to apply the knowledge to their daily lives. Many participants shared that learning about child care transformed how they raised their children and inspired a deeper, long-term commitment to maternal and child health within their communities. The project went beyond knowledge-sharing— it empowered communities to become agents of change, spreading information and supporting women and children within their own environments