EVERY LIFE COUNTS - Emergency Care for New Mothers, Babies and Children in Nigeria

Raising for:

AMURT

121%

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You can bring critically needed emergency care to mothers and children in Nigeria.

Your gift to the “Every Life Counts” emergency assistance program saves lives. We work together to reduce mortality among the most vulnerable: pregnant women, newborn babies and children.

Since AMURT started in Ebonyi State in 2010, supporters like you have been making healthcare accessible in the most remote and neglected rural villages in one of Nigeria’s poorest regions. Many lives have been saved. Your gift is applied directly and exclusively for emergency assistance to ensure that no lives are lost for lack of financial means.

Baby Miracle

Baby Miracle was born weighing only 600 grams, less than a loaf of bread. She was on oxygen as she was taken to the Federal Teaching Hospital in Abakaliki. There she was taken care of by the top neonatal consultants in Ebonyi State. Her survival was a miracle, and so her parents gave her the name Miracel. She was discharged after 10 weeks weighing 1.8 kg and has continued to thrive. Miracle's mother says: "When my own family rejected the baby, because she was too small, AMURT encouraged me and provided for us, so that Miracle could live."

Communal Conflicts in Ebonyi State

In 2021, Ebonyi has been marred by horrific violence from communal conflicts. This has seriously affected five of AMURT's eleven project areas.

The unprecedented tensions and insecurity of the conflicts has deepened the suffering for poor families in the rural areas, the majority of which survive on less than $1 USD per day.

Jacinta, 18 years old, was carried to Ohagelode Health Center in critical condition and referred by AMURT staff to the Federal Teaching Hospital. She had two bullet wounds and her mouth, nose and eyes were cut by machete. The photos from immediately after the attack are too horrible to show. In the hospital she was nursed back to life with intravenous feeding and a breathing pipe inserted in her throat. Sadly she lost one eye and the baby she was carrying. She spent three months in hospital and still needs reconstructive surgery on her nose. Jacinta is alive today because of the generosity of people like you.

Jacinta says: "After the attack I was unconscious, When I came to, I heard the AMURT health workers assure me that they would take care so that I could survive. When I woke again in the hospital, the AMURT people were there and they supported me until I was discharged, they continue to support me and I now believe I can be fully back to normal."

MATCHING FUNDS

Every dollar you donate will be doubled by our generous match funder, saving even more lives. That means your gift will have double impact.

Last year’s campaign raised $ 75,000. Let's make 2021 a record year! Can you help us reach $80,000? Your gift will provide desperately needed emergency care to children like Miracle, communal strife victims like Jacinta and new mothers, babies and children from impoverished families.

EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOUR GIFT CAN PAY FOR

US$2000 will provide one of our health centers with a neonatal incubator. Premature babies, like baby Precious above, will get the chance to grow in a warm and protected environment resembling the womb.

US$300 will pay for life saving surgery for a child or mother

US$50 can stabilize a severely malnourished child like Ukamaka, with protein rich food.

WHAT IMPACT DID YOUR LAST YEAR'S GIFT HAVE ?

Last year, your donations supported the healthcare of 627 patients! This included almost 100 life-saving pediatric surgeries, emergency medical care (including hospitalization) for newborns and children, and treatment for women with serious complications at birth. AMURT also treated 172 children suffering from severe malnutrition. With your help, people facing critical health challenges have been given a new lease on life.

MAKING PRIMARY HEALTH CARE WORK

AMURT is making health care accessible and affordable in a country where 19% of all global maternal deaths occur and 1 in 10 children won't reach their 5th birthday.

AMURT Nigeria has been setting up rural health centres in some of the poorest, most remote communities of Ebonyi State, for the last 11 years. To date over 22,000 babies have been born in our health centers.

AMURT has pioneered a new decentralised model of primary healthcare where the local community initiate, manage and take ownership of the health centers in partnership with AMURT and the government. The majority of staff in each health center come from the local community. In this partnership model, community mobilization and capacity building have been at the heart of the project. Through monitoring, discipline and a cooperative approach, the AMURT assisted health centers have achieved a high level of self-reliance.

AMURT