Laos’ maternal and infant mortality rates are abysmal, even higher than Afghanistan and Sudan. In the villages where our local partner works, women give birth alone in the forest. Many of these deaths are preventable by providing education about clean birthing practices and by providing clean Birth Kits which provide the equipment required for a clean birth.

By providing clean Birth Kits, we are enabling our local partner to send nurses and volunteers to the villages and educate Lao mothers about safe birthing practices.

We will make clean Birth Kits available to ethnic minority mothers aged 14 years and older living in remote villages in Salavan, in southern Laos. The families are subsistence farmers and hunters, living on less than a dollar per day. They have little education and live a very isolated life.

Our local partner, CleanBirth.org, will train nurses to use, distribute and track the use of the kits. They will also train village volunteers to do the same. The village volunteers will distribute the kits door-to-door, taking the opportunity to educate mothers about safety in pregnancy and birth. Every pregnant woman in the villages which Cleanbirth.orgserves will be eligible for an AYZH Janma Clean Birth Kit once she is six months pregnant.