Ngo Lobby Communities For Native Laws

To Promote Maternal And Child Health
Story: Mathias Aboba-Bolgatanga

Dr Michael Wombeogo, Director of PARDA
An NGO-Participatory Rural Development Action (PARDA) in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service and OXFAM organised a conference with Local Authorities and Assembly Members in Bolgatanga in Upper East Region. The aim of the conference is to develop community based strategies for the promotion of maternal and child health in the region.
Addressing participants at the conference, the Program Director of PARDA DR Michael Wombeogo disclosed that his organization works with and for community development. It is in pursuance of this objective that PARDA entered into partnership with OXFAM to implement a two years maternal and child health project known as the Top Project in some selected communities in the Upper East Region.
The program according to the Director began in 2011 and runs till March 2013. The beneficiary communities he indicated include: Tanga and Sapelliga in the Bawku West District, Sumburungu and Zuarango in the Bolgatanga Municipality and Gia and Naaga in the Kassena Nankana East District.
The Top Project, partners’ communities to identify and provide technical and material support for local structures to improve health care outcomes. According to the Dr Wombeogo PARDA has in the one and half years of the implementation of the project created six women led Community Health Committees (CHCs) in all six project communities. The committees have been provided with training and equipped with knowledge in community mobilization, lobbying and health education to discharge their duties which include door-to-door health education, and mobilization for self-help initiatives. To further promote safe motherhood and child survival the organization has also identified, mobilized and trained 150 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) to enable them provide care and support for pregnant women and nursing mothers.
Dr Wombeogo said in the many years of working at the grass roots PARDA has gained strong understanding and appreciation of the complex social and economic systems some of which inhibit women choices and access to modern health services. It is against this background that his organization took the initiative to organize the conference involving community groups, opinion leaders and local authorities in the bid to seek local views, concerns and support for strategies to empower and enhance women health care access to augment government efforts for the attainment of MDG 4 and 5.
He was optimistic the strategy adopted by PARDA and partners to stimulate community action and innovation hold the key to create the needed change in maternal and child health and survival. He cited as example the case for Tanga a community in the Bawku District where the efforts and influence of the Community Health Committee has attracted an NGO-World Vision International to construct a borehole in the community to improve access to portable water and reduce the distance women including pregnant women and nursing mothers walk to fetch water. The group has also influenced the setting up of a labor room at the community health center.
The conference suggested the drafting of local policies which will institutionalise punishment and reward for individual, groups or households whose conduct hampers or promotes safe motherhood and best child health practices.
A representative of the Regional Director of Health Services Mr Emmanuel Ayire expressed appreciation at the efforts of PARDA in promoting quality health care for the people in the Upper East Region and pledged the support of the Ghana Health Service to the organization.
Speaking in an interview a representative of the Chief of Zuarango one of the beneficiary communities Mr Adongo Peter said the Top project has proven to be instrumental in contributing to better health outcomes in beneficiary communities because it emphasis community ownership and innovation. He was happy that external development agents are beginning to recognise the role and contribution of local communities in their program. Mr Adongo thanked PARDA and partners for the program and urged them to continue and intensify the efforts and scale up the project to benefit more communities in the region.