Thursday afternoon Molly Melching, the Executive Director and founder of Project Muso’s partner Tostan, visited Yirimadjo to meet with Project Muso team members and to observe one of our newly-opened participatory education classes. Tostan is working in Mali for the first time, with classes launching in Koulikoro and Yirimadjo just two weeks ago. Ms. Melching, Tostan staff from Senegal and Mali, and Project Muso staff and volunteers all sat in on a class held in Bakorobabougou, on the edge of Yirimadjo. 

Last week, the Project Muso team held a workshop on nutrition. We focused this workshop on early childhood nutrition, nutrition for pregnant mothers, and nutrition for breastfeeding mothers and children.

Moise and I found Djeneba Diarra studying in front of the blackboard with her baby, Mawa, beside her. She was practicing writing words with the letter "b" in them. Djeneba never had an opportunity to go to school, but for the past twelve months she has been learning in Project Muso's Women's Education Program, training as a Moishe Community Health Promoter. As part of her training, she has been learning fundamental math and literacy skills.

More than one thousand pediatric doses of artemisin-based combination therapy arrived at the Yirimadjo Health Center in June 2007, to be distributed free of charge to children with malaria under the age of 5. This new policy is a crucial step by the Malian Ministry of Health.

A three-day course of artemisin-based combination therapy can cure malaria, which continues to be a leading cause of child death in Mali. And yet in the months after these life-saving drugs arrived at the Yirimadjo Health Center, their use has been minimal. The current policy provides a plan that goes as far as getting these drugs to Community Health Centers, but what then? What is the system for ensuring that these life-saving tools get from the clinic, up the unpaved dirt roads, and into the homes and hands of all those who need them most, particularly those who are poorest, most vulnerable, and most marginalized from the health system?

To systematically overcome each access barrier that people in Yirimadjo face, we are preparing to launch a Community-Based Malaria Program. This program, which we are developing with the Yirimadjo Health Center, will create a community-based delivery system for bednets that prevent malaria infection and ACT treatment that cures it, ensuring that these tools get to those who need them most, and are used effectively. This system for delivering malaria prevention and treatment tools will also lay the groundwork for delivering other life-saving health resources and care, with the aim of strengthening the health system as a whole.  

This month, Project Muso’s Moishe Community Health Promoters are training in family planning skills. Mali has one of the highest birth rates in the world, and one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. In this context family planning is an issue of great importance to the women who are training in our program.