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One Heart World-Wide Battles Maternal Mortality
Earlier this month, Arlene Samen and Carlos Tapadera Concheño of One Heart World-Wide visited the Tides Learning Community in San Francisco to speak about their excellent work in teaching good birth practices and preventing maternal mortality in Tibet, Mexico, and Nepal. Samen originally launched the One Heart program in Tibet, where in just ten years, they saw the annual number of women who died in childbirth drop from 33 to zero in two counties they worked in. As Samen noted, even after China’s crackdown on international NGOs serving Tibet, local communities continue to implement and share the practices they learned from One Heart.
As Concheño explained, One Heart’s work in Mexico currently includes 70 communities in the rural Copper Canyon—primarily indigenous populations—and involves a team of more than 50 volunteers who have been trained in offering life-saving skills and prenatal care. One volunteer that he mentioned is his 15 year old cousin Victoria, who is the only trained birthing resource in her area. Most of the communities the group serves are 2-6 hours away by foot from a local clinic, and an additional 8-12 hours to a hospital. Since One Heart has begun working in the region, they have reduced the annual number of maternal deaths in the town of Urique to zero.
You can listen to Concheño’s presentation and view their slides below:
And watch clips from the Q&A with Samen:
Other Ways to Watch & Listen:
