In 2006/2007 the local clinic made contact with a number of mothers here in Gushegu, with the plan of starting a few Mother-to-mother support groups. The motivation for this was to promote correct breastfeeding, in the context of the new hospital. Those initial groups were never started for various (financiele) reasons.Project Share saw great potential in such groups for educating and informing mothers. It is also very ‘low-budget’, since it mostly involves just being there with the women. And so in co-operation with the clinic 3 groups were started in Gushegu, with an initial training on breastfeeding. Soon it became apparent that there was much more information needed, so we decided to make a handbook with various health and social topics relevant to mothers and women. Each topic presents some information and questions for discussion. A training was given for the group leaders (each groups has at least one woman who can read) to help the women to make proper use of the handbook.
As it turned out, such mother support groups meet a need, because apart from the original 3 hospital groups, 2 more groups were added within months – one in Gushegu and one in Pumo, both initiated by the mothers themselves. Fantastic! [Suglo]