The Mali Health Organizing Project (MHOP) is dedicated to improving West African slum dwellers' access to primary health care.
MHOP is based in Bamako, Mali, where over 90% of urban residents lack access to basic infrastructure, clean water, electricity, durable housing, and basic health services. Slums in Mali are nonviolent neighborhoods whose residents are dedicated to improving their communities but lack the resources to do so.
MHOP partners with local leaders to find solutions to the growing health crisis, providing life-saving care to mothers and children and advocating for responsive urban governance.
Erin Kitchell, the Programs Manager at MHOP, tells us:
"I joined MHOP after serving for two years as a Rural Health Volunteer in Peace Corps Senegal. MHOP's dedication to empowerment through community organizing offered me the opportunity to continue to work on the front lines of the fight to end preventable child deaths.
"Seeing a child who would have died for want of something as basic as a rehydration drink fully recovered, playing and laughing in her mother's arms was an amazing experience. One in five children dies in Mali before reaching their fifth birthday. The majority of these deaths are caused by four preventable and treatable diseases: malaria, respiratory infections, diarrhea, and malnutrition.
"MHOP is dedicated to changing that statistic; we use inexpensive methods to promote prevention and ensure that no child will die needlessly for want of basic health care. Community Health Workers visit families enrolled in our Action for Health program, teaching mothers and fathers lessons on health topics and monitoring children for illness and low growth weights.
"Families living on less than $1 a day who are unable to bear the burden of health costs receive free in-home and clinical care in return for contributing service hours to projects such as water treatment campaigns and mosquito net distributions to improve health in their communities. Action for Health lowers child mortality and builds personal investment in community initiatives.
"MHOP is dedicated to empowering slum residents to bring about positive change. In order to solve entrenched health problems, we address the poverty and marginalization that are at their roots. We provide a range of services including waste management, literacy and entrepreneurial training for women, microfinance, and a local radio program devoted to health and slum conditions.
"In addition to providing social services, we train and fund local leaders and health workers to implement their own development projects. We work hand in hand with the poorest of the poor to make their ideas reality. Through our Community Health Action Group (CHAG), community members themselves shape our organization and its programs.
"Slums will continue to suffer from a crushing health crisis until effective urban governance with community participation exists. To this end, MHOP facilitates grass roots advocacy campaigns to address local concerns. In the past, the CHAG has led successful campaigns to prevent public land set aside for the construction of a clinic from being sold for private gain and to demand municipal authorities follow through on a promise to deliver a dump truck for community sanitation. The CHAG has since overseen the construction of a public clinic to serve 250,000 people and is planning the implementation of a community recycling center to improve sanitation.
"MHOP works with people living in the most desperate of conditions to address the very roots of poverty and illness. We focus on building communities, bringing people and their government together to work toward lasting change. Individual empowerment and civic engagement are at the core of our work."
How You Can Help
- Sponsor health care for a mother or her child by donating at malihealth.org
- Follow our blog or sign up to receive our newsletter for updates on programs in Mali--and share it with your friends!
- Hold a fundraising event such as dinner, a house party, or any other fun activity to contribute to the set up of our recycling center to reduce waste and provide jobs in the community
- Read about community health worker programs, child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, and the face of urban poverty in the developing world
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Comments
I disagree that 90% of urban dwellers in Bamako lack access to basic necessities. Data from the World Bank at data(dot)worldbank(dot)org shows that 59% of urban population have access to improved sanitation facilities, while 86% has access to improved water source.
This was as of 2006 which I’m sure by now these numbers would have improved.
What Africa in general, and Mali in particular needs is INVESTMENTS, NOT AID. After more than 40 years and over U.S. $1 Trillion spent, aid has yet to prove its effectiveness. If you truly want to help, focus on investing instead.
The percentages do not read right, as Aliou points out, and perhaps Erin was referring to people living in slums? If so, she ought to correct that. But I am very impressed with the way in which MHOP works, not only for the extent of its services, but also that recipients are required to repay them by taking their turn in serving the community.
Aliou, I agree with you totally, that investment in African countries is really the only sustainable answer. However, conditions in those countries have to be made more stable, corruption has to be stopped and most of all institutions must be made efficient and reliable. To be fair, otherwise why would people be ready to invest when running a company becomes so difficult?
According to UN Habitat, over 90% of Mali’s urban population lives in slums. Slums, as defined by UN Habitat, are residential areas that have little access to secure shelter, safe water, improved sanitation, and education and health services. I apologize for not referencing this statistic in a more clear way. Statistics put out by the UN record lower levels of access to basic services for urban and slum dwellers than the World Bank; statistics specific to Mali can be found at http://www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=214.
I agree that investment provides incredible potential for long term development lead by Malians and West Africans themselves. However, for many people the trickle down that can come from increased investment in business and economic development over time is not enough. The populations we work with are experiencing incredible hardship now and frequently lack resources to meet daily needs. Further, they have little access to opportunity. Many residents from the community we work with have no formal education and are employed through the informal sector. We believe that development requires a holistic approach, and in addition to providing social services we strive to increase community members’ capacity and the opportunities open to them. To this end, we run a literacy and business skills education course for women with little to no prior schooling. Upon graduation, they can apply for microloans to start small businesses in their communities.
Foreign direct investment must be paired with increased infrastructure in impoverished areas and efforts to promote local community development. The latter domain is the center of our work. Rather than simply providing aid, we aim to build capacity in the community and work toward making ourselves obsolete.