How Mama2Mama is influencing women’s access to healthcare services

By Samuel Luka, Bauchi

Mother to mother or otherwise known as Mama2Mama is an Initiative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in which women are selected to act as health advocates and educators within their communities.

During a recent media dialogue held in Gombe to mark the 2024 International Women’s Day, women in Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba who are members of the Mama2Mama group shared their experiences and successes recorded.

The women who are volunteers help in raising awareness about health issues and encourage community members, particularly women to seek healthcare when needed.

Furera Musa, Halima Mohammed Atiku from Bauchi, Dija Audu from Gombe and Ramatu Alhassan from Taraba states, expressed delight that a lot of women within their respective communities have been mobilized to understand the need to avail themselves to healthcare services such as antenatal care and routine immunization to improve their health and their babies.

As the Chief, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Dr Tushar Rane pointed out during his welcoming address, if endowed with the right knowledge, women can effectively lead or participate in community health initiatives, such as vaccination campaigns.

“Their involvement fosters community cohesion and increases the effectiveness of health interventions”, he said.

The Mama2Mama volunteer group while expressing regret that some health workers do encourage child delivery at home by attending women in labor, opined that the government must take necessary measures to stop the trend because it endangers the lives of the mothers and the babies.

Furera Musa from Darazo local government area of Bauchi state while sharing her experience said, she has done and achieved a lot of successes in influencing her fellow women to access healthcare services in her community Konkiyel.

Furera who had worked with similar group, PLAN International as a volunteer, said the experience she had, paved the way for her to be selected by the community to be part of the Mama2Mama volunteer group.

“We were still doing the volunteer work even after the project of PLAN elapsed. So, when Mama2Mama Initiative came, we were informed that 20 women would be engaged to work as volunteers in Darazo and they decided to engage us instead of engaging new persons”, she said.

According to Musa, apart from the mobilization activities they carry out within their communities, they also participate in cleaning the primary healthcare center in the community among other services as volunteers.

Furera said she was recruited into Mama2Mama group due to her work experience with PLAN International where she acted as volunteer for four years, pledged to continued commitment towards influencing women to register for antenatal as well as ensure that their babies are fully immunized against child killer diseases.

Also speaking, Ramatu Alhassan who spoke on the successes recorded by Mama2Mama, said their effort has helped a lot in changing the mindsets of women defaulters.

Ramatu expressed delight that with the sustained advocacy, many women have realized the importance of going to hospital for antenatal and other necessary healthcare services.

She said even those who use to go to hospital once and defaulted thereafter on excuses of lack of money have had their mindset changed as a result of the resilience of Mama2Mama group.

Ramatu said before the introduction of Mama2Mama Initiative, many women don’t go for antenatal, with some blaming their husbands for not allowing them.

“They will say their husbands have not given them the go ahead, but because of our resilience and sustained effort, we use to talk to their husbands, enlightening them on the need to allow their wives go for antenatal, we use to succeed in influencing such husbands”, she said.

According to Ramatu, any husband who refused to listen to them is reported to community or religious leaders for intervention.

“When we try to convince the women and they refused to accept, we talk to their husbands and if they refused, we report to Ward Development Committee (WDC), and with their intervention in such cases the husbands succumbed to their caution”, she said.

Ramatu who said although, working as a volunteer has not been an easy task for them, said they are always encouraged by the successes recorded.

“Women that don’t want to go to hospital before have started going, they have been going for antenatal care and immunization”, Ramatu said.

Also speaking, Hassana from Gombe who described the Mama2Mama responsibility as very challenging, explained that they were informed from the initial stage that the work is basically voluntary.

She said despite been informed that there is no pay in the job, they took it as a sacrifice to their various communities, adding that lack of appreciation of their job by some people is also another challenge.

“Another challenge is that anytime we come back from meeting at the end of the month, some people will mocks us by asking, where is the takeaway that was given to us, some will enquire to know whether we were given money for achaba (commercial motorcycle) or not, but because of the training we have received, we don’t normally take those challenges serious”, she said.

Baring her mind, Habiba from Bauchi who said such challenges are capable of discouraging them, however said perseverance will make them to continue to succeed.

“Anytime we meet, be it in the hospital or during our meetings, we use to encourage one another not to succumb to the challenges, some are decrying that the two-two thousand Naira we are getting is not adequate”, she said..

While commending the UNICEF for providing the technical support for Mama2Mama, the women called on the authorities concerned to provide them with working tools particularly uniforms to aid their performance.

A mother of three, Maimuna Abdullahi told our Corresspondent in an interview that she was influenced by the Mama2Mama group to register for antenatal and also the need to ensure that her children are fully immunized.

“One of them approached me few years ago. After greeting me she politely asked whether I have registered for antenatal or not, but I said no. I told her that I gave birth to my previous children without going for antenatal”, she said.

According to her, the Mama2Mama volunteer member took time to explain the dangers of not going for antenatal until she was convinced, which made her to step down the message to other women.

Maimuna who called on the government to support the Mama2Mama volunteer group with empowerment packages to strengthen and motivate their activity, acknowledged that they have done very well in the area of mobilizing the women to patronize the various primary healthcare centers within them.