Page 65 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 5

BUSINESS
out a very needy area, partner
with a health facility with good
quality maternal newborn health
services, and we plug the box
program into their ante-natal
care program so we don’t rein-
vent the wheel. When a mom
comes for a routine ante-natal
care visit – and she has to at-
tend four such visits – she’s
trained on the use of the box
and once she delivers she gets
a Toto Care Box. After receiving
the box we have a project co-
ordinator who does home visits
because the post-natal period is
a very critical period for mothers
and newborns and we run the
risk of losing them during this
time as well, so we go check on
how the new mom is doing and
if the baby is ok, if they are us- gave him a picture off Instagram
ing the boxes and the items well
and if there are any issues. We
try and give holistic care for the
mothers and babies.
There was always a huge ques-
tion about sustainability and
funding. One grant we were
pitching for that we wanted to
win was for Turkana County.
They have a high mortality rate,
almost as high as South Sudan.
We went to Turkana to really
understand their needs and see
the county health facilities, be- traction the box is getting, we’ve
cause that’s where we wanted
the box to go. But the box wasn’t
well received. Some thought
it was a coffin others said live- they want to buy boxes from us
stock would eat the box and so
we said we needed to contextu-
alize it to the needs. We visited
a Catholic Church and they had
a crafts shop and they had one
of these – points to the baby
baskets on display – so we said
imagine using that and putting
different items in it from the box.
We did this, covered it with the
net and talked to a couple of
moms and they said they would
be happy to have those as an al-
www.msingiafrikamagazine.com
ternative to the box.
We came back with the box and
the basket and we made our
presentation to the ‘big’ NGO
funders but we didn’t win. Af-
ter that, the basket idea was
shelved for a little while and it
stayed in the office.
Angela: Shortly after this, I
thought about how my baby had
used a Moses Basket in the UK
and I thought there’s no one ac-
tually doing this in Kenya (i.e.
beautifully trimmed baby bas-
kets on a wooden stand). So
we partnered with Mrembo Af-
rica and they came up with the
concept of trimming the basket
and mattress with Ankara fab-
ric. I then got my carpenter and
to make some stands. The first
one couldn’t fold, but we didn’t
give up. Eventually we came up
with this and we called it the Toto
Care Kapu, which we sell to a
different demographic of mums
and every basket we sell pro-
vides for a Toto Box, because
we want to be sustainable. We
haven’t sold that many baskets
because the demand is a bit
skewed.
But this year, because of the
had a few clinics approach us
because they want to raise their
ante natal facility uptake and
and want us to teach their wom-
en. So our sustainability has fi- and that’s where Toto Care Box
heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika
nally come, three years later.
Do you guys have any plans
to expand your scope outside
of Kenya?
Angela: We would love to. We
presented to a friend of ours
who has a link to Tanzania, we
have had queries from Bangla-
desh, but we wanted to perfect
and get the model right here be-
fore we did that.
Lucy: We’ve had talks with
Johnson & Johnson, I’ve talked
to a lady in Cameroon and we’ve
had the British Baby Box who
wanted to support us. We’ve
had queries from Angola and
Uganda as well. The impact has
been amazing. We’ve worked
with Lengo, improved ante-na-
tal care visits by 100%. We’ve
had women come from as far as
Mombasa and Moyale to do the
four clinic visits, deliver and get
the box.
We’re learning as we go and
it has become also a stig-
ma-breaker in terms of teen-
age pregnancy, so the girls are
coming in early because they
realize they might as well go for
the four, deliver and get the box.
Our mission is to preserve and
protect the health and welfare of
newborn babies. There are so
many interventions for pregnant
moms and infants but no one is
really taking care of the newborn
fills the niche.
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