280,000 women die in childbirth or pregnancy every year in Africa. 80% of these deaths are due to complications which could easily be avoided or treated. But with 80% of Africans living in remote communities with limited health care and an estimated shortfall of 1.5 million trained nurses and health workers in Africa, there is a chronic shortage of medical assistance within reach for pregnant women. This, coupled with a lack of recognition of the danger signs by the women and their families, spells disaster for many of them.

AMREF estimates that the goal of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015 will not be met without an additional US$5 billion of investment in maternal and child health in Africa. That equates to 0.5% of the investment made by governments in the financial markets in recent days.
“Mothers will continue to die in vain without the relatively small additional medical resources required to educate and treat them”, AMREF Director General Dr Michael Smalley said today.
Dr Smalley was speaking on the eve of the United Nations Summit which will address lack of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals on maternal and child health.

“With trillions found recently to support financial institutions, we urge the world to also find the small additional amount required to help save these women. We don’t question the need for government support in an economic downturn, but we do urge world leaders to show the same commitment to saving mums in Africa” he added.

Notes to Editors

• The UN High level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Thursday 25 September 2008.
• AMREF is a member of the Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health which is co-organising a special event hosted by three world leaders to examine the urgent need for accelerated progress to reduce maternal and child mortality at the UN on Thursday 25 September to coincide with the Summit. Presidents Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Tarja Halonen of Finland and Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of Tanzania will call for political action to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 (to reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five) and 5 (to reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio).
  
• In 1957, three surgeons founded the Flying Doctors Service of East Africa, laying the foundation for what is now one of Africa’s leading health development and research organisations.  Today, AMREF implements projects to learn and shares this knowledge with others to advocate for changes in health policy and practice. AMREF’s health care training is focused in remote and marginalised communities where health care is lacking but where 80% of the population lives.
  
• Somewhere in the world, a woman dies needlessly each minute in pregnancy or childbirth and a child under five dies every three seconds, according to the World Health Organization.
  
• According to the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health’s 2008 report Tracking Progress in Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival, few of the 68 developing countries that account for 97% of maternal and child deaths worldwide are making adequate progress to achieve the MDGs, with mothers and children in Sub-Saharan Africa being disproportionately at risk.
  
• The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health’s A global call for G8 Leaders and other donors to champion maternal, newborn and child health (2008) available at http://www.who.int/pmnch/events/2008/g8calltoaction/en/index.html found an estimated shortfall of $10.2 billion of aid for sufficient maternal and child health care worldwide. Although it only has 10% of the population, Africa has almost 50% of the requirement for maternal and child health development.
  

If you wish to make a donation to AMREF we would be very grateful if you would call our Fundraising Team on the above number. Thank you for your understanding.

Adidas Women's 5K Challenge 

The challenge is a 5km run which women of all ages and levels of fitness can take part in and raise money for charity.

Thank you to our 2008 runners!

Watch this space.  The date for the 2009 Adidas Women's challenge has not yet been announced but watch this space!

If you nominate AMREF as your selected charity, £5 of your £15 entry fee will be forwarded to us as a donation from the race organisers. We’ll send you a fundraising pack if you would like to raise more than your entry fee and a free t-shirt to run in on the day!

Why run for ARMEF?

Here's why Leanne Bryan ran for AMREF in the 2008 race:

"Running the Adidas Women's 5km Challenge gave me a real sense of personal achievement.  The run was great fun and it was fantastic to be surrounded by so many enthusiastic people running for good causes. I chose to run for AMREF because I was impressed by the wonderful work they are doing for vulnerable communities, some of whom lack even the most basic of healthcare. I'm really pleased that I have been able to contribute towards AMREF's work and hope to run again next year."

From driving the length of Africa, to holding a stall at a local fete or organising a local sponsored walk, AMREF supporters get involved in all sorts of activities to raise money for our work.

Whatever you are planning be it a sponsored walk, dinner party, sky dive, or even shaving your head; or if you’d like us to give you some fundraising ideas you have come to the right place!

Whatever you want to do to raise money for us, whether you raise £5 or £5000, let us know your plans just get in touch and we’ll do whatever we can to give you advice and resources to help guide your fundraising and maximise your potential! We've got lots of great resources to help you plan your fundraising activities.

On your own, through school or work, or with a local group, the money you raise can make a real difference to the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. 

The AMREF London Supporter group recently raised £2,500 at their Midsummer Party. 

Here's how they did it:

Ticket sales - £1912

Raffle - £249

Special cocktails (the bar donated £2 from each special cocktail) - £144

Sale of fairy cakes at the party - £38

Guest donations - £230

Total - £2,573

What could you do to help raise vital funds?

We’ve put together an information pack to help guide your fundraising you will be able to download this soon, in the mean time please contact us for your copy.

For more information please get in touch with AMREF's events team by emailing events@amrefuk.org or calling 020 7269 5520.

Thank you for your support!

Thank you!!

We would like to say a big thank you to all of our 2008 runners. Completing the course is a fantastic achievement and we hope that you enjoyed yourselves.

Your sponsorship money will help AMREF to support better health in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Africa.

Earth From Above: Lake Shore in Etosha National Park 168 x 113mm

Photograph by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

This card is left blank for your message

£4.99 Per pack of 10

Shepherdess 119 x 113mm

Artist Louise Hill

Greeting reads: With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year

£4.99 Per pack of 10

Night Safari 168 x 113mm

Artist Louise Hill

Greating reads: With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year

£4.99 Per pack of 10

Maasai Star 168 x 113mm

Artist Louise Hill

Greating reads: With best wished for Christmas and the New Year

£4.99 Per pack of 10

Preorder your cards by phone call the fundraising team on 020 7269 5528

Please note, due to problems experienced last year we will not be offering online ordering for our 2008 card range. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.  We hope this will not deter you from sending AMREF cards this Christmas

• Over 40% of people living in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to safe drinking water.
• Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time fetching water, and it is generally women who are burdened with the task.
• A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is 500 times more likely to die from diarrhoea than a baby born in Europe.

Thousands of children across Africa are falling ill because they have to drink dirty, parasite-infested water; they are suffering with diarrhoea because they don’t know that washing their hands before they eat could save their life; and they are dying because the health services and knowledge they need to treat the illnesses caused by dirty water and poor sanitation and hygiene are out of reach.

In the UK we take water for granted.  We can drink, cook, wash, and even play with water on demand.  Every home has a constant, unlimited access to water.  Despite this, we spend almost £2 billion on the luxury of bottled water every year in the UK, yet almost 1 billion people worldwide do not even have access to safe water.

Diarrhoea, cholera, hepatitis A, dysentery, typhoid, intestinal parasites like hookworm and tapeworm, and trachoma are all the result of dirty water, or of not having access to clean water.  The effects of these diseases range from stunted growth and malnutrition, to blindness or death.

Under the surface there are other wider repercussions; women are forced to spend large parts of their day collecting water, leaving them less time to engage in other domestic or income generating activities.  The illnesses that children suffer often prevent them from attending school, and absenteeism is high.  Children – and particularly girls – are likely to miss out on their education because their schools lack private and decent sanitation facilities.  Poor farmers and workers are less productive due to illness, health services are overwhelmed, and national economies suffer. Without water, sanitation and hygiene, sustainable development is impossible and communities are condemned to a never ending cycle of poverty.

Joyce Abuko lives in Katine, a rural sub-county in Soroti district, eastern Uganda.  Joyce is 30 and has five children of her own and looks after seven others.  She also looks after her sister in law who has terminal cancer. Every day, Joyce used to collect water from the Atriri spring wells, which were 3 miles away from her home.   ‘It usually took me more than three hours because of the queue’ explains Joyce.  ‘The water was dirty and children frequently got sick’.  In fact, the area often flooded, leaving the spring wells more like a swamp; stagnant and dirty, and infested with worms.  Women collecting water attempted to filter out the worms through leaves and grasses, but were not always successful. For Joyce, and many other families in the area, this was the only source of water for drinking, cooking and washing. In response to this clear need, AMREF renovated 5 old wells and boreholes and constructed 8 new ones.  These are being maintained by AMREF-trained community member pump mechanics, and their use is being overseen by the local water committees to ensure that they provide a sustainable source of clean drinking water to the community. Joyce’s family is just one of the many households that have benefited from AMREF’s work. ‘Since we started using clean water, the health of my children has drastically changed. The diarrhoea and stomach illnesses have stopped. They are never absent from school. Without having to worry too much about the children, I can focus on taking care of my sister in law and the homestead’.

 Joyce’s story illustrates how vital safe water and basic sanitation are in creating healthy and productive communities. AMREF has many success stories like this across Africa, but without your help easily preventable diseases will continue to kill thousands of children across the continent daily.

Please help us to continue our vital, life-saving work.  Donate today, or set up a regular monthly gift to help AMREF stop more African children from dying needlessly.

AMREF is proud of working with Africa’s poorest and most hard to reach communities to find innovative solutions to their health challenges. Our work in Turkana, northern Kenya, demonstrates our commitment to delivering healthcare to all, regardless of the obstacles.  Turkana is one of Kenya’s poorest and most remote districts where 75% of the population live in extreme poverty.  Most of the Turkana people are nomadic pastoralists, constantly on the move in groups in search of pasture and water for their precious livestock.

In Turkana many girls marry in their early teens and it is not uncommon for them to give birth to their first child before the age of fifteen, before their body is mature enough to cope with pregnancy and childbirth. Women in Turkana have very limited access to reproductive health services, including pre-natal and emergency obstetric care. This, along with a chronic shortage of trained health workers and limited education for girls, contributes to the likelihood of women experiencing complications during pregnancy and childbirth and very high rates of maternal and child mortality. For each woman who dies during childbirth, twenty more women suffer serious complications, including a condition called obstetric fistula.

Obstetric fistula is a devastating childbirth injury that occurs when a young woman has a difficult, obstructed labour that lasts several days; but is unable to access medical care. In 90% of cases the baby dies and the woman is left with extensive tissue damage to her birth canal that renders her incontinent.

The results are of fistula are life shattering. Women with fistula are perceived as unclean, and the stigma attached to the condition means many are neglected or abandoned by their husbands, families and friends, and are left isolated from their communities.

Nearly 100,000 new cases of fistula occur in Africa each year, while millions more women have been living with the condition for many years. Although fistula is devastating, it is both preventable and treatable. The scale of the problem, and the persistence of fistula is a signal that health systems are failing to meet the needs of women.

Stella lives in Turkana and shares her experience with us: “I went into labour at around 4pm. When the baby refused to come out, the traditional birth attendant said I should go to the hospital, but it was dark so I had to wait until the following day. Four men carried me on a bed all the way to the hospital, it took many hours and by the time we got there, I was unconscious. My mother was told that my uterus had ruptured. The baby was dead.  When I woke up, I found myself lying in a pool of urine. The doctor told me that something had gone wrong during labour and I could only be treated at the hospital in the city. I did not know where I would get the money to go there. I went back to my mother’s home feeling very sad.  I had no baby and now I had this new embarrassing problem.  When my husband came to get me, my mother told me about this condition.  He left, saying he was going to look for money to take me to hospital. I never saw him again.  Later I heard that he had married another woman. Life has been very difficult these last seven years. I spend most of my time sitting on a pile of rags. I have always had painful sores on my thighs and buttocks. I have not been allowed to go to weddings or to church. Then one day last month, a teacher from a nearby school told me that doctors from AMREF were coming to treat women with problems like mine. I came here four days ago, and yesterday I had an operation to repair the fistula.  I am very excited because when I go home I will be able to do all the things that I have not been able to do. I have been given my life back”.

In Turkana, AMREF has worked closely with the nomadic pastoralists to map their migratory routes and is building health centres along these routes, ensuring that women can access healthcare more easily. AMREF is also training volunteers from each nomadic group in basic child and maternal health care.

• AMREF is performing fistula repairs across Africa and training more surgeons to carry out fistula repair operations.
• AMREF supports communities with the resources and training they need to deliver better reproductive health services.
• AMREF is reducing maternal and child mortality and offering hope to women across Africa who are suffering from fistula, but we need your help to continue this vital work. 
  

With your support, AMREF can transform the lives of more women who live in poor African communities. You have the power to prevent the unnecessary death of women and babies in childbirth, to restore dignity to young women across Africa and enable them to live happy, healthy lives.

Please donate to AMREF today and help us transform the lives of more women like Stella.

AMREF’s Supporter Group is organising an evening of speed dating on Thursday 11th September to raise money for AMREF's life saving work in Africa. We are recruiting young men and women for what will be a fantastic evening.

Up to 20 high-speed dates come at a very reasonable cost of £20 and the benefits could be priceless… For the cynics you’ll get a drink and some canapes too!

SAVE THE DATE

Date: Thursday September 11th

Time: 7.30 for a first date at 8pm

Location: Punch Tavern, Ludgate Circus, London

BOOK YOUR PLACE

If you are interested please call the ticket hotline on 020 7269 6867 to pay by credit card.

Alternatively send a cheque made payable to ‘AMREF Supporter Group’ to AMREF, Cliffords Inn, Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1BZ. If you’re sending a cheque please also email amrefsupporters@amrefuk.org so your name is on the list before we run out of spaces!

The Katine Community Partnership Project has worked with the community to form water committees, to manage and ensure the sustainability of the water sources. The water sources also have care takers. Mary is the care taker of a borehole in Abia village. Once in a while, she consults with the project officers on a number of issues, and here she tells us about one such day.

I am Mary Amulo and I come from Abia village in Ojama parish in Katine sub-county. I am 31 years old and my husband is Elwangu Julius and is 33 years old. Both of us are peasants and have six children, four girls and two boys.

In the morning I woke up, cleaned my face, started cleaning the compound. After which I went to the garden with a hoe and when I came back home I bathed. After bathing I took some porridge which I had made earlier.

Then I dressed up and came to the sub-county and visited the Katine Project to see Richard, (Richard  is AMREF’s community empowerment officer) and greet everybody at the office.

I had gone to see Richard to discuss some few things, and then talk to Anthony (the Project Assistant responsible for Water and Sanitation).  I went to meet with Anthony to talk about the work plan for the village; to see how we can serve our people better.

When I went I saw a number of photographs that where taken in Katine. I really liked them. I even saw myself in some of the pictures.   

From there I came here for a meeting to see what to do, since our local council leader for Abia village had died. The chairman died on 26 June after a short illness.

I am the care taker of the borehole in Abia and I am also going to hand over the money that members contributed to the treasurer. I have been keeping the money since the death of the chairman. I used to bring the money to him.

The amount I have collected so far is 27,000 Ugandan Shillings (about £9). The policy we made in our village is that each month each family has to contribute 500 Shillings, which is put in a pool, so that when the borehole breaks down we can use this money to make repairs. We have ninety-nine households in Abia village.

Most household pay but some don’t. Some complain that they don’t have money, some say they stay very far from the water source, yet others don’t really stay in Katine. They just have houses, and come here once in a while. Indeed, many people don’t have money. Even how to get food is becoming a problem; crops are drying up and we are experiencing a draught.

At the moment we buy food. Myself, I have some goats from which we can sell one to get money. At times I go to the bush, collect firewood that I sell in the trading centre, from where I get some money to feed my family.

After extensive consultation with community members, activities are now underway that will help to transform the lives of 25,000 people living in Katine village and the wider sub-county.

Joshua Kyallo, AMREF’s country director in Uganda said: "We have a brilliant team in place, with years of experience in community development, and we are excited that, after months of preparation, we are now starting to deliver the activities that the community members have asked for. The people of Katine are excited about what the project has to offer, but equally they know that it will not work without their input and close involvement." He added: "In our preparation, we have also closely involved the local authorities, as we want to make sure that the impact of the project will be felt long after the three years has ended." An activity plan has been drawn up for the next three years but certain activities have been prioritised for the next two months, given the urgent needs that exist.

Maternal and child health – urgent training needed

Maternal and child health were identified as urgent areas of need by both community members and local health authorities. As reported in the Guardian last week, the majority of women in Katine do not give birth with a qualified health worker present and as a result, maternal mortality rates are high. In December and January, AMREF will be training traditional birth attendants on safe delivery methods, pregnancy danger signs and when to refer cases to a health clinic. And we will be training health workers (including midwives) in emergency obstetric care. Tackling childhood illnesses was also identified as a key priority. Malaria, in particular, is the greatest health problem facing the people of Katine.

AMREF will be training village health teams on how to best prevent and treat malaria and other diseases, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. All of this training will mean that those who fall sick will have access to treatment closer to their homes and more people will be educated on how to prevent ill health in the first place. As with all AMREF projects, we will be improving the skills of existing health care staff in the local clinics. Early next year we will provide training to improve the quality of care that they offer and infection control, medical waste disposal and drug management services. The training will also strengthen their planning, budgeting and financial monitoring skills.

Lack of clean water increasing diseases, such as diarrhoea and guinea worm

Many villages in Katine have no access to water whatsoever and even for those who do, the water is often unsafe. This is a major factor in the prevalence of diseases, such as diarrhoea and guinea worm, and is therefore an urgent priority. AMREF has worked closely with the local authorities to identify where boreholes need to be built or rehabilitated and has contracted an engineering company to carry out the work. This has taken a considerable amount of time as organisations have to obtain three sets of quotes, to guard against corruption and nepotism. Trained water and sanitation staff are now mobilising community members to take ownership of the water sources and promote better hygiene and sanitation. In January AMREF will train hand pump mechanics so that community members will be able to do their own repairs and maintenance.

Better school environment and more equipment needed

The biggest challenges people identified in the education sector is lack of teaching materials and the poor state of the school buildings. During a recent visit to a school in Katine, the Guardian reported only 15 text books for 68 pupils in a class. Key activities in December will therefore include procurement of national curriculum teaching materials. Later in February, AMREF will start rehabilitating classrooms. Amorikot primary school, which has a few mud and thatch huts for 364 pupils, will be one of the first to benefit.

How will the project be funded?

The Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited are running a three-year appeal with their readers and Barclays has provided an upfront donation of £500,000 to get the project underway and a further £1m in match-funding for donations over the course of the project.

Madeleine Bunting of the Guardian says: "The Guardian sees this as a unique opportunity to deepen the public understanding and debate around aid - how it works and why its needed - through the pages of the paper and in an unprecedented commitment to a dedicated website which offers both moving insights into the lives of Katine villagers and the challenges of an aid project."

Jo Ensor, AMREF UK’s Chief Executive added: "AMREF is delighted that the Guardian has given such prominence to the Katine project, helping AMREF to make a real difference to people’s lives. It has also given us an unprecedented opportunity to bring an African voice into the development debate, and to communicate our approach - empowering the poorest and most marginalised communities to take control of their own health and development – to a global audience."

Susie Cox, Barclays Global Community Partnership Manager says: "Barclays is pleased to be able to provide funding to support this project, but more importantly we are delighted to be working in partnership with AMREF and FARM Africa in Katine, to help communities generate sustainable incomes, to increase their access to financial products and services and to build the capacity of community groups to manage small businesses."

Dr Susan Wandera, the Head of Programmes at the AMREF Uganda country office, visited Katine recently and spoke to people in the community, including Josephine Achen. Sister Josephine, as she is known, is 60 years old and was featured in the original Guardian Katine supplement. She was born in Ochuloi village in Katine sub-county and became a traditional birth attendant (TBA) after she delivered her own baby at home by herself. She is highly respected in the community and supports and trains many other TBAs in Katine.

“Yoga [Hello]”, she says excitedly, as she extends her hand. “You should have told me you were coming, I would have dressed up!” Josephine is proud of her work and clearly has a newfound confidence in her skills and experience. Skilled and motivated midwives are a vital health resource in Uganda, where the maternal mortality rate is very high and more than 1 in 10 children die before their fifth birthday. So far this month Josephine has delivered two babies and referred three mothers to the health centre for specialist pre-natal care.

Providing skills to the community

AMREF recently ran a week long training course for TBAs in Katine. Out of the 26 known TBAs in Katine, AMREF has now trained 19 of them. Josephine participated in this course and when she talks about it, it is clear that she has enjoyed the experience. “This is the only training I have had in 11 years, I learned so much! We were trained on hygiene practices; pregnancy danger signs and when to refer a mother to a health centre; how to use local resources to deliver babies and then how to keep records. We were treated with respect and were even given breakfast, lunch and free accommodation.”

The AMREF training also provides information on how pregnant women can protect themselves from diseases like malaria and encourage their husbands to support them better, as Josephine explains: “I now always advise mothers to get mosquito nets for themselves during pregnancy and for their babies after delivery, I tell them to ask their husbands to get them. I also insist on proper sanitation. AMREF has also brought water closer to us; this means that the deliveries take place in a clean environment”.

The impact of the Katine project

As well as receiving training from AMREF, Josephine explains that her village has been visited by village health teams, who have been teaching them on the importance of good hygiene and proper sanitation in and around the home. A borehole has been drilled nearby and Josephine describes how “less people seem to be getting ill with diseases”. When asked what she would like to say to AMREF and all the people who have donated to the project, she responds: “Tell them”, and here she speaks excitedly in English, “Sister Josephine is greeting you all, thank you!”

If you would like to donate and support the project, please follow the link here.

The sky was heavy with rain. Gunmetal grey streaked with white, distant lightening. Armorikot's big day had come. The village primary school and the heavens were going to open at the same time – and both were going to be equally welcome.

The rains in Katine sub-county in rural Uganda have been capricious all year, beyond the control even of such a faithful community as this. But the school is the result of the tough persistence of a small group of villagers determined to see their children live out lives less perilous than their own.

There's been a community school here – one set up by the local people and mostly funded by them – off and on for twenty years. More off than on, as the terrible sequence of what everyone here calls 'the wars' ebbed and flowed around them.

During the Lord's Resistance Army incursion in 2003, the villagers – spread out across several square miles of open country – fled to Soroti's displaced people's camp and for months relied on inadequate food handouts in squalid surroundings.

This afternoon, as the storm edged closer, Moses Olek, chair of the school management committee, reminded fellow parents how families with educated children had been able to find ways of making enough money to escape the camp. His audience, beginning to tug their wraps around them against the gusty wind, had had nothing, and they were given little more.

How the community led the way

That was when Moses Olek, Faustino Ameca and a small group of others decided they would somehow educate their children, at a school even the youngest could reach. By April 2004 they had somehow managed to find 500,000 Ugandan shillings ($300) to buy a block of land where they could rebuild their school. It is not a large amount of money, but at least 70 of those families are still living on less than a dollar a day. There would have been many more, four years ago.

Encouraged by the district education officer, they built a handful of classrooms, huts really, as well as a school office, and began with about 240 children: now there are 400. But getting their children to school was still a knife-edge struggle for most families. Until the government takes over the running of the school, the parents have to pay for most of the teaching staff, who charge 3,000 shillings – about US$2 – a term.

The charges at the community school made a mockery of the Ugandan government's commitment to universal free primary education. And for someone like Raymond Ereda, it meant educating the ten orphans in his charge (the children of two of his sons) was out of the question.

Hope the project is making a difference

Last year, AMREF chose Armorikot for its first major investment. It was chosen against half a dozen other community villages not only because the need was there, but because of the work the village itself had already done.

In just eight months, and with an investment of nearly 173m shillings, seven classrooms and a small suite of school offices have been built. Less glamorously, but just as importantly, so has an Ecosan pit latrine. If the kids learn about hygiene and sanitation at school, as one of the celebratory speakers said, "then they'll go home and tell the old people about it."

The opening of the school was a great occasion. There was coca-cola. A bullock was slaughtered. There were quite a lot of speeches from almost every tier of Uganda's complex local government. But this was a moment to celebrate the achievement of just 500 families, and it built fittingly to a climax.

Moments before the rain came down, the boss of bosses, chair of the Soroti District Council, self-styled governor Stephen Ochola, gave the school the guarantee it most needed: registration before the end of the year. Free school for the people of Armorikot. As AMREF handed over the keys to the district council, the rains came down. Good news for everyone.

This article was written by Anne Perkins, for the Guardian. 

At 5:30pm, an AMREF Cessna Caravan piloted by Captain Daniel Baton was cleared for take-off. On board were Dr Kizito Osundwa and nurse Kilda Begisen. Both had taken part in countless evacuations, but neither had been involved in a case involving conjoined twins.

After 45 minutes, the light aircraft landed at an airstrip in Tabor Hills, 20km from Nyandarua. An ambulance was waiting nearby, as well as a large crowd of adults and children. On touch down, the AMREF team rushed to the ambulance, where they were briefed on the action taken by the medical team at the hospital and the condition of the patients. The babies were then put into an incubator in the airplane where their condition could be monitored electronically. Their mother, Monica Wairimu, still suffering the after-effects of a caesarian operation, was assisted from the ambulance to the plane and immediately put on a drip. Her husband Elijah Maina accompanied his fragile family.

When everyone had settled in, Captain Baton prepared to take off again. It was 6:45pm. The plane’s rotating propellers pushed the swelling crowd back. Once airborne, an easy calm descended in the cabin. Dr Kizito made sure the twins and their mother were comfortable.

Most rural hospitals are ill-equipped to anticipate or handle emergencies such as this. An obstetric ultra sound scan could easily have detected the nature of the pregnancy, protecting the mother and her children from unnecessary danger. As it is, doctors only got to discover that Monica was having twins after the incision for the Caesarean section was made. They had noticed that the baby’s presentation was peculiar as it was lying across the abdomen rather than head down, prompting them to perform the C-section.

The quick evacuation would ensure that Monica’s babies received the specialised care they needed. As the plane touched down at Wilson Airport, Nairobi at 7:30pm, a waiting Flying Doctors ambulance moved in, ready to whisk them off to the Kenyatta National Hospital.

If you are sharing any of these documents with others please acknowledge AMREF.

Six Month Update

• Six month report
• Six month financial report
• Six month update on activities
• Activity plan for next six months

Start up documents

• Initial community needs assesment
• Conceptual framework
• Baseline survey
• Community baseline survey

To understand more about our commitment to transparency, and about the documents AMREF is sharing, please read our open information policy.

You can also read what Rick Davies, the independent evaluator has to say about the project at his Evaluating Katine blog.

We run, trek, cycle, climb and walk. We do it to save lives in Africa. If you’re looking for a challenge, join us, we’ll be behind you every step of the way.

Test your limits on one of our running, biking or hiking events, enjoy the unique opportunity of visiting an AMREF project before completing one of AMREF’s African Challenges, or even organise your own event.

Whatever you choose to do, have fun, challenge yourself, make new friends, and help AMREF save and transform even more lives in Africa’s poorest communities.

For more information please get in touch with AMREF's events team by emailing events@amrefuk.org or calling 020 7269 5520.

The African health worker crisis is particularly acute in rural and hard to reach areas, in which 80% of Africa’s population live. Consequently, AMREF has chosen to focus on training volunteer community health workers (CHWs). CHWs provide basic health care and education in areas where there is often no access to formal health care.

Whilst CHWs do not have the same abilities as trained doctors or nurses they are trained to recognise and refer more complicated cases. AMREF also ensures CHWs are linked to formal health centres and hospitals. This is essential not only to ensure quality and consistency of care but also to avoid creating a two-tiered health system To ensure their knowledge is relevant and up-to-date, AMREF also provides CHWs with regular refresher courses.

Being trained as a CHW brings an individual a great deal of respect. However, AMREF also provides other incentives such as bicycles, to ensure that the CHWs are rewarded for their efforts and remain satisfied with their roles.
Each year, AMREF trains more than 10,000 CHWs.

Projects and stories

• Afar malaria control and prevention, Ethiopia
• Mukaranga water and sanitation, Tanzania

• Q. What is Gift Aid? 

• A. Gift Aid is tax relief on money donated to UK charities.  

• Q. What does it mean?

• A. You can increase the value of your support to AMREF, at no cost to yourself, by allowing us to claim the tax back on your donations.

• Q. How do I do it?

• A. If you are a UK taxpayer, simply 'Gift Aid' your donations and increase your support of AMREF's life saving work. For every £10 given, AMREF can claim back an extra £2.80. That’s almost 30% on the value of your gifts to us. All you need to do is make sure you tick the box on our donate pages when you make your gift.

• Q. Do I qualify?

• A. To qualify for Gift Aid you must pay an amount of income tax or capital gains tax equal to the tax we reclaim on your donations, currently 28p for every £1 you give. Please let us know if your tax status changes.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us: 020 7269 5520 supporterservices@amrefuk.org

“The supporter group provides the perfect opportunity to get more involved with AMREF as well as keeping me up to date with what is going on. It is great to be part of an enthusiastic group of people who all have different skills, ideas and expertise.” Harriett Begg.

AMREF is delighted to be working with a dynamic supporter group. The group is made up of enthusiastic professionals living in London who are keen to get more closely involved with AMREF’s work. The main aims of the supporter group are to raise AMREF’s profile in the UK and to fundraise. The group has set themselves an ambitious fundraising target to support AMREF’s life saving work.

Harriett Begg is one of the founding members of the group. “For me AMREF stands for everything I look for in a charity. An African charity working with communities to improve their lives.”

For more information please get in touch with AMREF's events team by emailing events@amrefuk.org or calling 020 7269 5520.

UBS is the world's largest wealth manager, a top-tier investment bank, a leading global asset manager, and the market leader in Swiss retail and commercial banking. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It employs over 80,000 people and operates in more than 50 countries.

AMREF and UBS

UBS has partnered with AMREF for the past five years and is committed to supporting better health in Africa.

One of the initiatives UBS supports is the MEMA Kwa Vijana sexual health education project in the Mwanza region of Tanzania, which targets 500,000 school children aged 12-19. Another is AMREF’s malaria project in the Afar region of Ethiopia which benefited from employee donations from UBS’s Children’s Seasonal Party in 2005.

In addition to financial assistance, AMREF UK’s fundraising team is involved in mentoring relationships with the client services team at UBS Wealth Management.

"UBS’ Community Affairs programme focuses on educational initiatives that train the trainers and widen access to education. The firm supports AMREF on projects that provide African communities with the knowledge and means to protect their health. Teaching local people to help their communities and educate others not only saves lives but it also creates employment prospects for the trainers.

"Employees at UBS are so supportive of AMREF’s work that some have chosen to run marathons on AMREF’s behalf. In particular, staff members are impressed by AMREF’s capacity to communicate with community leaders and patients themselves, so that projects are implemented from within the community. This adds credibility to the new hygiene practices and facilitates the sustainability of AMREF’s excellent, life saving educational work."

Patsy Francis, Director, Corporate Responsibility and Community Affairs

Employee involvement

UBS employees Adam Williams and Bamidele Aly climbed Kilimanjaro in 2005 to raise money for AMREF. They then visited an AMREF health project in the Maasai village of Kajiado in Kenya. Here they were able to meet some of the people who had benefited from AMREF’s life saving work and see the impact of their own fundraising efforts.

“The AMREF Kilimanjaro Challenge was one of the most physically and mentally demanding projects we have ever undertaken,” said Adam, “but visiting the community which will benefit from the money we raised made it all worthwhile,” Adam Williams

Click here if you would like to take part in an AMREF African Challenge and visit an AMREF project

Michael Buerk, well-known former BBC newsreader and foreign correspondent, will present a BBC Radio 4 Appeal for AMREF on Thursday July 19th. The appeal focuses on AMREF’s work in Ethiopia, the country which first linked Michael Buerk to AMREF.

Michael Buerk’s award-winning reports on the famine in 1984/5 led to a massive international relief effort, saving thousands of lives. He returned there in 1991 and following an explosion in an ammunitions dump, was evacuated to safety by AMREF. He has been a loyal supporter of AMREF ever since.

For the appeal, Michael Buerk tells the story of Hasena Humed, who, like him, also brought up twins. He tells Hasena’s story in her own words:

“My twin daughters died when they were only two years old. I didn’t know what was wrong with them, they were both very ill and I was weak with a fever. So I carried them for two days to the nearest health centre, walking as fast as I could…. When I arrived, the nurse told me it was too late to treat their malaria.” He adds: ”I also have twins and can just imagine her pain.”

Michael Buerk then describes how AMREF is helping to stop these needless deaths by bringing health care closer to those who need it most: “Just because people live in remote rural areas of Africa doesn’t mean they should struggle to find basic health care."

He explains how AMREF has been saving and transforming people’s lives in Africa for the last 50 years and asks people to help AMREF to save thousands more.

AMREF is delighted to be awarded a BBC Radio 4 Appeal, to raise more funds for its vital life saving work in Africa. Craig Pollard, AMREF’s fundraising manager said: “This gives us an amazing opportunity to promote our work to a large and diverse audience.”

AMREF was awarded a BBC Radio 4 Appeal in 2003, also read by Michael Buerk, which raised more than £33,000. Craig adds: “We hope that this appeal will equal or even surpass the previous one, allowing us to save and transform thousands more lives in Africa.”

The appeal will be broadcast on:
Thursday 19th July at 3.27pm
BBC Radio 4: 92-94 FM, 198 Long Wave , or listen again online.

“AMREF’s work has a lasting impact – a life saving one. I certainly owe them my life. They rescued me after I was caught in a violent explosion, alongside my film crew in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“But that is not why I lend them my support. I have seen AMREF in action. Their practical, inclusive approach to health care makes an amazing difference to millions of people in Africa.

“They see helping disadvantaged communities improve their own health as a real chance for them to excape poverty once and for all. I can think of no better legacy to pass on to Africa’s children than that.

“Africa’s people want a better future for themselves. With one simple action you too can help them to achieve their dream. Please put AMREF in your Will.”

When making or updating your will, you don’t have to choose between giving to charity or to your family because you can remember both. As a charity, AMREF is exempt from paying Inheritance Tax, making this a very tax-effective way of giving.

“For me, the important thing to do after taking care of my own family and friends is to try to make the lives of those still living, more hopeful. That’s why I’m leaving a legacy to AMREF in my Will.” Anne Allport, Legacy Pledger.

It isn’t complicated to arrange to leave a legacy to AMREF, one of our team will be happy to help you through every step. Call us on 020 7269 5520 or email supportercare@amrefuk.org.

AMREF is a member of ‘Remember A Charity’ which provides advice and a free Will writing service. You may have seen the television and press advertising featuring Michael Buerk about leaving a gift to charity in your will. Click the link above to find out more.