International Midwife Assistance

International Midwife Assistance (IMA) recognizes the importance of forming partnerships to work most effectively in new environments. With support from international nonprofits, such as BeadforLife, and local nonprofits such as Pilgrim in Soroti, Uganda, IMA is able to connect more deeply to community needs and desires and to deliver the services most needed. Partnerships allow delivery of more helpful maternal/child services to women and children.

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS
The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) is a charity registered in the U.K., Australia and the United States that is dedicated to relieving suffering from malaria. The charity provides funding to lower the cost of purchasing long-lasting, insecticidal mosquito nets for nonprofit organizations such as International Midwife Assistance and the Teso Safe Motherhood Project. Through a partnership with Against Malaria Foundation, International Midwife Assistance is empowered to raise funds specifically for the purchase of high-quality bednets through AMF at one-third the cost of purchasing nets directly through suppliers in Uganda. Additionally, AMF works with IMA to make available video and photographic reports that show our supporters the fruits of their monetary contributions. No less than 100 percent of the funds donated to AMF on behalf of IMA go toward the purchase of bednets! For more information or to make a donation for the purchase of nets, please visit our Against Malaria Foundation fundraising page at http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/midwifeassist.

BeadforLife is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Boulder, Colorado. BeadforLife works to eradicate extreme poverty by creating sustainable opportunities through bead making and selling. BeadforLife also supports community development projects in health, vocational training for impoverished youth, affordable housing and business development. These projects are supported with profits from the sale of the beads, which support not only the bead makers, but other impoverished people in Uganda as well.

One of the projects receiving funding from BeadforLife is the Teso Safe Motherhood Project in Soroti, Uganda. Thousands of impoverished and socially vulnerable Ugandans who live without basic services have benefited from the diagnostic services provided by the Teso Safe Motherhood Project (TSMP) clinic laboratory. These diagnostic services, funded since 2006 by BeadforLife, make a very real difference to the patients. These people who have endured so much violence, loss and tragedy, come to Teso Safe Motherhood Project clinic seeking free, high-quality and compassionate care. Laboratory services are critical to providing quick and accurate diagnoses, allowing the clinicians to prescribe the proper medication and to identify patients suffering from more than one condition. Since August 2009, BeadforLife also has funded TSMP’s family planning program. Thanks to BeadforLife, TSMP has been able to hire a full-time, dedicated family planning nurse who offers our patients counseling and birth control methods. Our patients are empowered like never before to understand their options and make the best choices for their families with regard to child spacing.

The MAIA Foundation is a philanthropic organization that identifies and invests in programs and organizations that are effective agents of change for women in sub-Saharan Africa. MAIA's focus is improved maternal care delivery, access to comprehensive women's health services and life skills coaching for young women. MAIA is curently funding programs in Uganda and Rwanda.

IMA receives funding from the MAIA Foundation in support of our TWIL program - Transporation of Women in Labor, which removes the cost barrier for our patients who wish to give birth at our clinic in Soroti with the help of skilled birth attendants.

Uprinting is an online printing service that has a charitable program called UCommunity. Through UCommunity, IMA receives $250 in free online printing services to help with the creation of fundraising and promotional materials.

LOCAL PARTNERS
Our clinic in Uganda, the Teso Safe Motherhood Project, is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) registered in Uganda. IMA works in partnership with the staff at TSMP to provide technical and financial oversight and support. Please visit their website: www.TESOsmp.org!

Pilgrim is a small Ugandan organization registered by the Government of Uganda as a Christian charity and a non-profit organization. Pilgrim's mission is to restore hope to disadvantaged communities, especially the war- and poverty-afflicted peoples of Uganda and Africa as a whole. The organization is intent on tackling the sum total of factors that have led to total erosion of the God-given dignity, self esteem and self determination of the peoples of Uganda, beginning with the war-affected peoples of Eastern and Northern Uganda. Pilgrim provides food, medicine and trauma counseling to refugees of Uganda's decades-long civil war who live in refugee camps in the northeastern region of Uganda and organizes the rehabilitation/resettlement of refugee families.

Move on Malaria (MoM) is a malaria control program started by Pilgrim. It was conceived after devastating floods wreaked havoc on north and eastern Uganda in 2007. The project involves Pilgrim, the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Agathos Foundation, Concern Worldwide, and International Midwife Assistance through the Teso Safe Motherhood Project. Malaria is endemic in the region with an average of 550,000 cases annually.* The Katakwi district, an area of great poverty and need for medical care, was chosen to pilot MoM. International Midwife Assistance partnered with Pilgrim to provide 10 local nurses who administered standard childhood vaccinations to 10,759 children ages five and younger in October 2008. IMA plans to continue supporting Pilgrim with Move on Malaria as they return to Katakwi in 2009.

*Information taken from "Move on Malaria," a report by Pilgrim

PAST PARTNERS

In Afghanistan, IMA was fortunate to have the support of the Afghanistan Relief Organization (ARO). ARO provided introductions, cultural perspective, logistical support, and generously hosted IMA volunteers at their technical center in Kabul. ARO is a nonpolitical, secular, nonprofit 501(c)(3), humanitarian organization, registered in the United States and in Afghanistan. ARO volunteers are mostly Afghan American and remain deeply connected to Afghanistan, its people and culture.

IMA also developed a partnership with the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Aga Khan Development Network is a large NGO working in East Africa and Asia. They supported the Bamiyan Provincial Hospital and worked closely with the Afghan Ministry of Health to develop and realize its programs. The organization implemented the Community Midwife School in Bamiyan. Aga Khan Health Services provided resources and infrastructure that IMA, as a small nonprofit, could not.

Since 1989, the Colorado Haiti Project (CHP) has been working in the Petit Trou de Nippes region of Haiti where some of the poorest of the rural poor subsist with very little access to basic necessities, such as clean water, basic healthcare and elementary education. CHP runs regular mission trips to Petit Trou to help provide for these needs, focusing on education, vocational training, healthcare, nutrition and clean water. This Christian charity, based in Boulder, Colorado, aims to build lives of dignity and self sufficiency for the people of Haiti.

OUR DONORS

IMA receives generous support from both individuals and foundations. In 2009 and 2010, IMA was awarded a grant from Bead for Life that supports TSMP's laboratory services and family planning program. Our major financial support has come from a most amazing individual, Ms. Dale Halton. Many family foundations, such as the T & J Meyer Family Foundation and the Pajwell Foundation contribute generously. Henry Schein has been incredibly generous with medical supplies, as has Cascade Healthcare Products. We strongly encourage everyone to patronize the Henry Schein Company and Cascade Healthcare Products; they are tremendous charitable businesses. And of course, IMA welcomes your donation of any amount.