KAROO NEWS - According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), South Africa has the highest reported prevalence rates of foetal alcohol syndrome in the world, with our country’s overall rate being at least 6%, compared to the global average of 1.5%. In some communities in South Africa, rates are as high as 28%1.
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the most common preventable form of mental disability in the world and occur in children of mothers who drink alcohol during their pregnancies. Even though FAS is completely preventable, there's no cure for this irreversible lifelong condition1.
Imagine a community where all children are born healthy without the burden of disabilities that come with FAS. One community in South Africa has achieved just this. Thanks to the efforts of MAMAS Alliance and the Hantam Community Education Trust (HCET), no babies within an area east of Colesberg in the Great Karoo have been born with FAS since 2013.
MAMAS Alliance, an agency working to support grassroot NGOs by assisting them with fundraising from corporate South Africa, has been working with HANTAM to eradicate FAS. This partnership has seen HANTAM develop comprehensive educational and developmental projects that service a 50km radius across 30 farms in the area to improve education and training as well as manage community health and youth development programmes.
“When you walk the walk with the mother, you are providing that much needed support system,” says Estelle Jacobs, a project manager at HCET who presented key learnings about dealing with FAS within communities with other NGOs at the recent Biennial MAMAS Alliance SHARE conference.
Jacobs says that their programme was started as a result of one mother within the community who drank while she was pregnant, and who had never been educated about the dangers thereof. As a result, her first born now has a severe learning disability.
Like many other mothers, Hannah did not realise that when she drank, so did her unborn baby.
Wanting to educate other pregnant mothers that FAS is 100% preventable, but also 100% irreversible, Hannah, along with HCET, spearheaded an initial FAS programme. After educational campaigns, home visits and great efforts made by field officers, this campaign was found to still not be making a tangible difference within the community.
Through subsequent research, the organisation realised that these mothers had no connection with their unborn baby, and that no bond had yet been established. What was needed was a deeper understanding about the growth of the baby, and more about the physical attachment and link between mother and baby.
What started to really work was the use of more impactful and educational visual material. One such example was of the brain of unborn babies at 16 weeks, comparing that of a normally developing foetas to one already serious affected by FAS. This, along with demonstration using dolls and other educational initiatives, resulted in many more mothers not drinking alcohol during their pregnancies.
Furthermore, many fathers and men within the community started forming support systems to help pregnant women to not drink, reinforcing yet again the importance of involving whole communities in these types of initiatives.
Through these efforts, HCET and MAMAS Alliance have successfully created a FAS free community. Because of the success of this and other projects, HCET has won numerous awards, including the State President’s Award for Community Initiative in the Northern Cape.
While the organisation does receive some state funding, it raises most of its funds from South African and international donors, including donors that support MAMAS Alliance. As a CSI Agency, MAMAS Alliance drives and directs funds to where they are needed the most. The ability of MAMAS Alliance to work at no cost is possible because the organisation is funded by Children’s Fund MAMAS, a Dutch NGO that has been co-funding dozens of childcare organizations across South Africa since 2000.
Through international donors and local CSI spend from corporate South African partners, lives of tens of thousands of children and youth are improved annually. This network of strong, reputable, independent and autonomous grassroots childcare organisations provides a healthy, safe and stimulating environment for the continuous growth and development of the most vulnerable.
With a network of 2 200 Mamas across 37 independent autonomous NGOs operating from 75 predominantly rural sites, over 60 000 vulnerable children are cared for.
What makes MAMAS Alliance different is that corporates who partner with them benefit from the whole CSI process being managed from start to finish with MAMAS Alliance providing over 400 opportunities for social investment.
Reference:
https://www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/foetal-alcohol-syndrome-awareness-programme (September 2020)
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