MOTHER SUPPORT GROUP TRAINING

Women in their fertility age are very key for the successful implementation of every child survival project.

As part of the project interventions to achieve the objectives of the phase 2 of the SIMAVI/HFFG child survival project, a 5-day training workshop was organized for 46 leaders of the Mother Support Groups from the 23 beneficiary communities involved in the project. These women all in their fertility age groups were brought together for this training.

Mother Support Groups are group women in a community who support and educate other women on gender and reproductive health and rights issues. Members are made up of community women, community traditional leaders and mothers of children under five years. A total of 46 women, two from each community, took part in the training workshop.

The topics treated include:

• Malaria: Causes Effects and Prevention
• Diarrhoea: Cause Effects and management
• Family planning
• Basic facts of STIs HIV and AIDS
• Safe Motherhood, danger signs of pregnancy,
• Causes and prevention of maternal and under five mortality and morbidity
• Child Health and growth promotion
• Newborn Care
• Gender and reproductive health issues
• Reproductive Health and Rights
• Effective communication and advocacy skills
• Causes and prevention of gender based violence
• Reporting gender based violence
• Group dynamics

Because of the crucial roles that these leaders would be playing in their communities, each session was characterized by demonstrations, role plays and group works to make sure that the women understood the topics very well.

After the training, the leaders are expected to go back to their respective communities and mobilize more women in their fertility age to form Mother Support Group education clubs. The club members would then provide education on project interventions including family education and services to their peers. The clubs are supposed to meet every week for educational programmes

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