Table 1 Key characteristics, strategies, interventions, and results of World Relief Mozambique Vurhonga II project (explained in detail in Edward, et. al.[7])

Location

Community-based maternal child health project covering all 48 villages of Chokwe District (excluding Chokwe town), Gaza Province, Mozambique

Key Dates

• Funding from October 1999 – September 2003

• After initial planning and baseline studies, project implementation began March 2000

• Population surveys for coverage of key maternal child health services and behaviors in October 1999 (baseline) and July 2003 (endline)

• Additional evaluation studies conducted in May 2004: Retrospective complete pregnancy history survey, mortality results analyzed from March 1998 to February 2004, and reported in six separate 12 month periods

Main Project Strategies

• Health related behavior change of mothers of children under five through 173 Care Groups (mothers’ groups with 10-15 volunteers each) trained in monthly supervisory visits, whose members performed monthly visits to 8-10 households in immediate vicinity

• Train health workers and religious leaders in health counseling techniques and content

• Outreach and community-facility links through training of socorristas (community outreach workers) in health posts and formation of village health committees

• Strengthen first level of facility-based health care through establishment of health posts in villages that lacked them and health worker training in IMCI

• Train traditional birth attendants and build small delivery rooms with cement floors in several villages for use by project-trained TBAs

Technical Interventions

• Nutrition promotion and community-based nutritional rehabilitation

• Promotion of improved care seeking for sick children

• Immunization

• AIDS prevention messaging

• Latrine construction

• TBAs: clean deliveries and essential obstetric and neonatal care (clean cord care, drying and wrapping newborn, skin-to-skin contact, immediate breastfeeding)

• Community case management of diarrhea and pneumonia

• Care of children with diarrhea: promotion of ORT and nutritional support

Selected Key Results/Outputs

• Monthly home visits by Care Group (mothers’ group) members, with 100% coverage of households with children under five throughout project period

• Village health committee coverage increased from 0 to 95%

• Outreach workers (socorristas) increased in number from 3 to 32

• Increase in access to trained providers of care for sick children from 65% to 99%

• Health providers trained in IMCI increased from 0% to 100% in project area

Main health activities of other organizations in Gaza District during project period

• Oxfam assisted in distribution of ITNs to all women of fertile age and children under 5.

• NGO assistance to MOH – train socorristas in community-based child health activities.

• National vaccination campaigns, polio eradication campaigns x 2