Newborn Infant Resuscitation Program
In Afghanistan, 165 new infants die for every 1000 births and maternal mortality is about 60 times that of industrialized countries, with an Afghan mother dying every half-hour on average. Most children in Afghanistan die today because of ineffective health care rather than injury or war. To date, Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal, infant, and child mortality rates in the world.
To help fight these tremendous odds, Afghans for Civil Society is launching, in partnership with Ellyn Elizabeth Cavanagh, Ph.D., MN, CPNP, a Newborn Infant Resuscitation Program for midwives and mothers in June 2007.
The establishment of an Afghan Newborn Initiative is a vital effort to protect the most vulnerable humans in civilization—newborns.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal, infant, and child mortality rates in the world. The leading cause of death for newborns is birth asphyxia – for which there is a cure. In high-income countries, a system of resuscitation and intensive care has extended and improved lives for newborns.
In Afghanistan, this has not yet happened.
There are decades-long knowledge deficits and reconstruction is limited by a severe lack of human resources. The health care system is non-existent and the list of deficits long: no pre-hospital management; only one fledgling ambulance system in the city of Kabul; no telecommunications; no trained public servants in first aid; unsafe environments.
The Newborn Infant Resuscitation Program will:
- Provide resuscitation training to fulfill the demand for this public health service
- Expand the limits of life by providing space, equipment and knowledge for the deliverers of essential life-saving care.
- Centralize education and equipment
- Establish a standard of life-saving health care throughout the area to serve newborns.
The ultimate goal for this program is to raise neonatal resuscitation practice in urban Kabul to Western standards and serve as a model for other Afghan provinces. It is most cost-effective and capacity building to spend resources within Afghanistan, training Afghan physicians and developing a network to build recipients’ capacity to provide infrastructure for problems.
Our hopes are to reduce the incidence of maternal deaths and newborn defects resulting from micronutrient deficiency. We have hopes to achieve funding for a Newborn Resuscitation Training Program for midwives, nurses and doctors which will save an estimated 100,000 newborns a year. Dr. Ellyn Cavanaugh, a Maryland nurse who has worked in the hospitals in Kabul for 6 months will head this program.
The beneficiaries will be the unborn children who will be added to the chain of survival.
Core principles underlying our framework for this initiative are urgency, equity for women and unborn babies, treatment and human rights, and sustainability
Learn more about Ellyn Elizabeth Cavanagh, Ph.D., MN, CPNP download the Afghan Newborn Initiative flyer to learn more about how to help ACS support this important project.
Afghan Public Health: Nutrition and Vitamin Assistance Program
In 2005, Afghans for Civil Society conducted a research project on public health for women and children, in conjunction with ACS’ vitamin distribution aid program in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The vitamins for this program were generously donated by U.S. organization Vitamin Relief.
Security concerns have caused several NGOs and other health organizations to depart from Kandahar, leaving Kandahari hospitals and clinics empty of much needed supplies, physicians and basic medicines to perform life-saving procedures. Women also fear leaving their homes to seek medical attention.
To reach the women and children, ACS’ Hameeda Hameed visited women’s homes and distributed vitamins, conducted public health surveys and gave home-based lessons on nutrition and health. 
Hameeda wrote in a report:
Kandahar, where you see life in its simplest form, people have seen violence and brutality on such a large scale that they have never considered basic essentials like proper nutrition, personal hygiene, and health education, which are considered very important—even vital-- in developed countries.
The program included vitamins distribution, teaching the importance of nutrition and personal hygiene to women and children. While I was there, I noticed that women were not allowed to go outside; therefore I chose to go and give them visits myself.
ACS was able to bring the multivitamins and folic acid to 104 women and 93 children. The method of distribution was door to door and word of mouth. The educational material regarding nutrition was provided by UNICEF - charts showing how to practice disease prevention and also proper cooking methods, as there is a large illiteracy rate in Afghanistan these were done through pictures. Verbal education was also utilized by ACS in emphasizing the importance of proper diet and nutrition.
ACS was limited by the amount of pharmaceuticals that it could send due to lack of outside funds and donations, hence if more involvement was to take place larger groups of women and children will benefit from the program.
Throughout the vitamin distribution program Hameeda visited and interviewed women and children, which shaped the research on public health and helped mold her nutrition lessons in communities.
Hameeda included personal narratives and insight she saw while working in Afghanistan on the vitamin distribution program. Her thoughts connect how the overall conflict in Afghanistan still impact women and children trying to survive everyday.
“The lack of proper nutrition, nutritional education, and cultural attitude of the region has left women vulnerable to extremely poor health and in severe cases even death. Due to the lack of a stable economy in Kandahar many family are unable to purchase foods that would be beneficial to their health, they lack the most basic and essential nutritional products such as vitamins, proteins, simple and complex carbohydrates, and clean water. It is our understanding that lack of these essential foods in the normal diet of the women of Kandahar is correlated to the prenatal and postnatal complications, the increase in stillborn births, birth abnormalities, and in some cases death of the mother during labor.
The children of Kandahar are also impacted by the lack of proper nutrition. As with the women the children also suffer from the lack of essential food products in their diets, hence their normal mental and physical development is greatly affected. The necessary vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and clean water are usually beyond the financial reach of many families which again suggests a strong correlation between the lack of nutritional food products and the poor health of the children of Kandahar.
Cultural attitude also affects the nutrition of the women and children of Kandahar. Women in Kandahar are under great cultural pressure to marry at a young age, be the second or third wife, and abstain from outdoor activities. The strict conservatism of the region has not allowed the women to get basic education let alone nutritional education. These factors have left women vulnerable to exposing themselves to unhealthy and improper diets as well as being unaware of means of becoming healthy, if economically possible.
The primary goal of ACS is to not only provide vitamins and nutritional education but also raise awareness of the serious problems that the women and children of Kandahar face on a daily basis.”
Full findings from the project can be downloaded here.
Humanitarian Aid
On the Ground: Rebuilding and Relief
Afghans for Civil Society has assisted various other individuals and organizations working in Afghanistan including assistance with refurbishing an orphanage in Kabul, facilitating distribution of aid materials, emergency supplies and other donated supplies.
ACS is also working on restoring historical monuments in Kandahar and has currently completed the restoration of the grounds of the Mir Wais Mausoleum.
With funding from individuals in Massachusetts, ACS helped rebuild a small village, half of which was destroyed during the 2001 air war. This project was the first in the area dedicated to re-building the private dwellings of ordinary Afghans. ACS also helped rebuild the Ako Kalacha village (13 homes and a mosque) and the Zarghona Middle School for girls. ACS has also facilitated numerous shipments of humanitarian aid, including shoes, medicine, clothing, toys, vitamins, handmade quilts, blankets, school supplies, books and hygienic supplies.
