The Impact of Our Work

Mercy for Mamas has been working in Uganda for six years now. In the beginning, we had no idea this would be a long-term work or the impact this work would have on the women of Uganda. Looking back it is amazing to see all that has been accomplished.  Here is a brief snapshot of our success:

• We have passed out close to 30,000 kits to women in Uganda!!  Wow. It’s crazy to think each kit represents one mama and at least one baby.  We have no way to measure how many lives have been saved because of the kits, but we do know that each kit represents a birth where a woman was able to use sterile clean supplies and had the opportunity to seek medical help.
• We’ve been able to work in virtually all areas of the country, from large city areas to remote villages and islands.
• Mercy for Mamas often provides for a need that the government and other groups are not meeting. The Ugandan government has a goal to provide mama kits to all of the women in Uganda, but so far it has not had the resources to meet that goal. Often they only provide even the largest government hospital with about half of the kits needed to meet the daily birth rate. In the more remote areas there are no supplies available. Without a Mercy for Mamas kit these women would go without, which can easily lead to infection and complications for the mother and the baby.
• We are blessed that we have been able to find a Ugandan supplier for our mama kits. This means the women get exactly what the hospital requires, they are materials/brands they are used to using, and they can be produced locally. We love getting to help the local economy in this way. It also saves us a ton of money on shipping and import costs!
• We have a wonderful Ugandan staff. We have an in-country coordinator and two Ugandan nurses that we use to help with our activities. We love that they know the best way to reach the women within the culture.
• We have fabulous ministry partners and I am so excited that the majority of those partnerships are with Ugandan-run ministries. I love to invest in groups and to help Ugandans help Ugandans. I feel like often times this provides the most effective ministry and sustainable ministry.
• Mercy for Mamas provides life-saving prenatal information. We teach women important pregnancy and birth warning signs. We want these women to know the most dangerous signs to look out for so they know when it is essential to seek medical help. Often they are not getting this information anywhere else.
• We have heard story after story of women who had no plan for their birth, no prenatal education or care, and no supplies until they met with one of our partners in ministry. Many received the kit and information just in the nick of time for their births. Women who were already in labor, giving birth along the road, walking around with a serious unknown complication.
• We love to also look at the spiritual impact of our work. We have been able to pray with and encourage thousands of women at our outreach events. We invite women to join a local church or bible study. We encourage teenage girls to take part in the classes and training available to local pregnancy centers. We want these women to have safe childbirth, but also get the spiritual help they so often need. So many of these women are not pregnant by choice and need spiritual and emotional counseling to help them to become the best mothers that can be.
• We work with local clinics and ministries to continually encourage women to come for health education. They can come for prenatal education, nutrition, breastfeeding, and newborn care classes. This is information these women are often not getting anywhere else. It is so exciting to see them get the information they need to better care for their bodies and their babies. We always try to have local nurses do the teaching and explain things in a way that will be easy to apply to their everyday lives.