For many years now the Central African Republic has been ranked the infamous second highest place according to maternal mortality rate in the world. Women there give birth at home, on the ground, without access to clean water. Births are most often delivered by midwives, known as matrons. 

Izabela Cywa, who went to CAR as a lay missionary from the Diocese of Tarnów, worked in a hospital in Bagandou for several years. Almost every day there, she saw women arriving at the medical center with birth complications, which usually ended up in the death of the mother or child. The complications occurred often due to mistakes made by medical personnel. All it took was for the umbilical cord to be cut with an unsterile instrument or ligated with a dirty thread. This resulted in tetanus infection of the newborn, who had no chance of survival. 

Matrons and those responsible for the delivery process are in 90% responsible for such a high mortality rate in the Central African Republic. They make mistakes because they are uneducated and unprepared people. 

Iza decided to change that. Together with midwife Sara Suchowiak, they created the Safe Mom training program, which addresses the root of the problem – the insufficient knowledge of midwives.  

Safe Mom aims to reduce maternal and child mortality rates. It is a specialized project in gynecology and obstetrics, which involves: 

• training medical personnel in: the most common obstetric pathologies in pregnancy and perinatal period, learning surgical treatment of perinatal injuries, neonatal resuscitation, obstetric care of the woman after delivery and the newborn, and many other issues that save lives;  
• equipping health centers with basic gynecological and obstetrical equipment and medical and paramedical supplies, such as stethoscopes for auscultation of the fetal heart rate and umbilical cord clamps, which are essential for proper delivery.

Unfortunately, in most medical outlets, matrons do not have the resources or knowledge to address complications during labor, and therefore the mortality rate is very high. It happens that women carry a dead baby in the womb for several weeks because no one has checked the fetal heart rate, and the mother develops an infection that cannot be controlled.
- Sara Suchowiak expalins.

Each training course conducted by a team of volunteer medics in CAR (no one is paid) costs more than 25,000 $/€. The medics take medical equipment with them, which stays at the health centers after training. From Poland, they bring practically everything needed for a safe delivery - from sterile umbilical cord clamps (0,25 $/€ per piece) to more complicated equipment, such as baby heart rate detectors (87 $/€ per piece). Our volunteers also create "midwife's backpacks" which include a stethoscope, manual blood pressure monitor, hygiene and dressing supplies (300 $/€ per set).

The last (fifth) training trip of Polish volunteers took place in June 2024.

Support the Safe Mom project! Save the lives of women and children in CAR!

Adoption of an unborn child in CAR

Take up the "Adoption of an unborn child in CAR", which consists of regular support of a training project in the Central African Republic with 12,5 $/€ for a symbolic period of 9 months. At the same time, we encourage you to pray daily for the child and his mother during this time. At the end of the "adoption", we will send each regular Donor a special letter and a photo of the child born thanks to their support.

For those who wish to take up regular support, please write in the title of the transfer: Adoption of an unborn child in CAR - permanent declaration.

If you wish to make a one-time donation for this purpose, please write in the title of the transfer: Safe Mom - we save unborn children in CAR

Bank account numbers for money transfers are:

For $: PL 52 1600 1462 1847 3641 5000 0009; SWIFT: PPAB PLPK
For €: PL 41 1600 1462 1847 3641 5000 0013; SWIFT: PPAB PLPK
For others: IBAN: PL 79 1600 1462 1847 3641 5000 0008; SWIFT: PPAB PLPK

PROJECT SUMMARY

When we started the Safe Mom Project in 2021, despite the noble goal and the great determination of Iza Cywa and Sara Suchowiak, and (as it soon turned out) the great generosity of the Foreign Missions Secretariat's Donors, it was hard to predict that after a few years the project would continue and become increasingly successful.

Since the very start of the Safe Mom Project, our medical volunteers have already trained more than 150 matrons in the Central African Republic. In June 2024, Iza Cywa's team went to Africa for the fifth time.

If we assume that every midwife trained by the Safe Mom Project was able to safely assist women during childbirth, taking into account the statistics (one matron delivers an average of 30 births per month), more than 4,000 babies have had the chance to be born safely and healthily in the CAR since 2021. The Safe Mom program has saved their lives. Therefore, this convinces us all the more of the effectiveness and necessity of this form of assistance.

Since 2021, you have donated more than 110000 $ to this project. Thanks to this, we were able to fund as many as five trips of our volunteer medics to CAR. However, this is not our last word on the matter! Next edition is ahead of us. Read more about it here.