The Mother-Child-Health Project Kabul:

Starting date:             01 January 1996
Implemented by:        Terre des hommes (TDH)

Staff:

The Mother-Child-Health – Home Visiting Project, Kabul, is directly managed by Terre des hommes, which signed its first agreement with the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in early 1996, and further renewed the Agreement with the MoPH in April 1999 and July 2001 respectively. The Agreement has been renewed again by the Interim Administration in February 2002.

The principal objective of the program is to provide home-based pre- and post-natal midwife support to mothers and their newborn children. All Terre des hommes staffs are female Afghan citizens; no expatriates are employed in this program.  Terre des hommes currently employs 30 medical doctors and midwives who work in 12 areas / 8 districts of Kabul. Community-based links are established through the MoPH’s maternal child health clinics.

Approximately 80,000 residences in 12 areas of Kabul City, pregnant women, mothers and their new-born babies are the prime target of the project. For example: From January to December 2002, the midwives visited a total number of 11,569 new households and reached exactly 28,382 clients. The teams also revisited an outstanding number of 23.158 clients again. 84,399 women were present during health meetings, and 831 mothers received a demonstration of supplementary food assistance. The Mother Child Health Project of Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the only home-visiting maternal health project in Afghanistan. During 1998 the Taliban suspended the program for a while but the MCH women continued to work secretly and managed to maintain the program for several months thus providing essential services to needy women. In October 2001 the program has been suspended for three days only due to heavy bombardments in Kabul, and again mid of November 2001 for three days again when the Northern Alliance forces conquered Kabul.

Co-funded by Canada Fund, terre des hommes Germany and Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC).