Maria, giving birth for the first time, managed a complicated childbirth. Thanks to MAGNA community health workers.

Maria is 19 years old and lives in the capital city of DR Congo, Kinshasa. She is a single mother and sells vegetables to earn money for her living. Today she has a healthy little boy and regularly visits a newly opened MAGNA health centre in Camp Luka.

Maria has met community health worker not until 8^th month of pregnancy. She didn’t get any medical checkup during the whole pregnancy. She had no money and nobody in her surrounding had given her information about the importance of medical checkups and childbirth preparation. Fortunately, Maria came for her first medical examination before childbearing thanks to recommendation of MAGNA health worker. Thanks to MAGNA support, she managed a complicated childbirth. Maria, new mother, still stays in touch with MAGNA health workers and continues in sessions about child care, nutrition and parentage.

DRC´s heath indicators are among the worst in the world. Due to the extreme poverty, limited basic services and constrained access to health care, maternal and child mortality rates remain high.

From August 2015 MAGNA has started a new project in Camp Luka area of Kinshasa. The objective of the project is to improve health status of mothers and children under 2 years and to decrease mortality of mothers and their babies. MAGNA provides trainings and daily technical assistance to local health workers operating in communities and in 3 health centres. The trainings support local medical workers in information and education sessions. The community health workers visit mothers with children and teach basic principles of child care, maternity and cooking from local ingredients.