Health Surveillance Assistant provides maternal care to entire region

Gladys is stationed in Dziwe, Malawi. She is a health surveillance assistant (HSA), and manages three villages – Sitima, Kasonya and Chipumi – serving nearly nine hundred people. With a mission to increase health worker and overall health system capacity through improvements in distribution practices and management oversight, VillageReach is enabling HSAs like Gladys to serve a greater number of people in the community more efficiently and reliably. Gladys is trained in maternal and neonatal health, and works with families in these villages to reduce deaths among mothers and infants.

In Malawi, more than one quarter of all childhood deaths are attributable to the neonatal period. The country’s under-five mortality rate is ranked 26^th highest in the world. To address this, VillageReach works to train and supply front-line health workers like Gladys. The support VillageReach provides for Gladys is especially useful for her community, where women may travel as far as 19 kilometers to seek maternal care. Gladys’ dedication as a front-line health worker helps reduce the distance between mothers and the support that they need to keep themselves and their children safe and healthy.

Thanks to your support, Will, MSAF, Brian, Christine, and Steven, Gladys receives the training and supplies she needs to help the communities she serves, and these children and their families receive the healthcare and support they deserve.