In Senegal, more than one child in 200 does not exceed the first year of life. Pro-femmes, a project promoted by the volunteer organization A.C.A.B.A.S. and the WW-GVC Onlus, and co-financed by the Emilia-Romagna Region, aims to carry out a community action for the promotion of maternal and child health in the Municipality of Thiès North of the African country.
The main Pro-femmes strategies focus on facilitating access to pre- and post-natal care services and on training local health workers, aiming to better connect community health services and promote the construction of an institutional and social network. To this end, the project has launched an intense awareness-raising activity aimed at the population, which starts from the skills, practices and knowledge already existing in this field.
The project is at the end of its first phase which foresees the definition of needs regarding some specific aspects such as the threats, challenges and vulnerabilities of the reference community and, on the other hand, the coping strategies already implemented. The research, conducted by Laura Dotto - scholarship holder of the Field Work program at the University of Bologna and a student of the first year of the Master of Science in Local and Global Development (SLEG) - aims to define together with the community, and in particular the women, the most appropriate services and actions for the prevention and treatment of maternal and child health.
On site, the work was planned and carried out together with the volunteers of A.C.A.B.A.S., the Municipality of Thiès Nord and the women of the Association de femmes-relais et communautaires. The outcome of the research will serve to take the next steps, that is, to implement appropriate responses to solve the health problems of mothers and children and, at the same time, make them known and acquired to the local community.
On the VOLABO website, the Volunteer Service Center of the Metropolitan City of Bologna, an interesting article explores the Pro-femmes project and the research conducted by Laura Dotto during her Field Work experience. Click here to find out more.
