• Everyday in PNG 3 women die due to complications of pregnancy/childbirth.
• For every woman who
  dies, about 30 sustain significant disability.
• 45 out of every 1000
  babies born will not live to see their first birthday.

Two years ago Past President Alice Wells of Soroptimist
International read these statistics and believed that it didn’t have to be this
way.

These thoughts were converted into action and Alice chose the ‘Birthing
in the Pacific’ project, established by SI South West Pacific, as her President’s
Appeal 2011 – 2013. This Appeal, which has now run for 2 years has been life
changing for women and their children in Papua New Guinea.

What Birthing in the Pacific aimed to do was improve
mothers’ and babies’ chances in Papua New Guinea by training birth attendants
and clinicians, educating women and communities, improving equipment and
facilities, and working closely with health departments to introduce
international best practice.

Over the last 2 years Village Birth Attendants (VBA’s) have trained and graduated. These VBA’s are now saving the lives of women
and children and will continue to carry out their work and train others so that
the cycle of safe care can continue. The VBA’s are now monitoring the situation
within their communities which was something that had not been done before. 

BIP also achieved training for Community Health Workers
(CHW’s) who often have no formal midwifery training. One of the CHW’s Jolly Kulimbua recently wrote to thank
Project Manager of the BIP project, May Lamont. She stated “I take this great opportunity to thank you and your management for
sponsoring my trip to Samoa to attend the PSRH’s 10^th Biennial
Scientific Conference. You have given me the privilege to experience this kind
of meeting with other health workers of the same roles across the pacific. The
conference was an eye opener for me to recognise that I am playing a key role
in disseminating knowledge and skills to improve health issues affecting women
of the reproductive age. I now hope to train and up-skill every rural health
nurse with emergency midwife skills. 

Hard to reach communities
have been accessed and awareness raised about
the importance of maternal healthcare. New equipment has been purchased and
distributed to midwives and health centres around the country ranging from neo-natalie dolls to
new beds.  

In September 2012 the project had raised US $275,000. Now
the total has reached a whopping US $518,858. Read more about BIP’s achievements or watch our special BIP video.

Final Message from Past
President Alice Wells:

“When I first learned
of this project as SI President Elect, I was immediately touched by the fact
that it was a federation-sponsored project that truly supported: a) women
helping women; b) education and leadership; c) a project where Soroptimist
would get credit for the work being done. 
In addition, I also saw it as a project that could hopefully be
implemented in other federations.  After
visiting PNG in 2012, I was even more convinced that this project could truly
be life-changing for these women and their families in Papua New Guinea.

While the original
intent was to train midwives, further research indicated that training village
birth attendants was even more critical in saving the lives of women and their
newborns.  I had the exciting opportunity
of meeting the first 15 VBAs who were trained by SI Ramu last year.  These women were from many villages in that
province and in just the first nine months of their training, they helped 106
women deliver; they helped 55 women reach a health facility, and supervised 51
births themselves.  In addition, they have
also provided antenatal care and helped mothers with family planning after
birth.

Kudos goes to the
Soroptimists in Papua New Guinea for their leadership in taking this project
forward, especially to those Soroptimists in Lae and Ramu and to those
Soroptimists in SWP, who have been diligent in working with officials to ensure
the success of this project:  SWP/IPP
Yvonne Simpson, Janet Askern, May Lamont and countless others in your wonderful
federation who have truly "made a difference" for the women in
PNG. THANK YOU and God bless!”