SAFE Works: Impact
What People Say:
Women's Empowerment
"Me, as me, I just continue thanking SAFE and appreciating SAFE for what they have done because for me, in my home, I didn’t have anything, I could not even introduce people to my home. But right now, since SAFE came, I am somewhere, I am someone, and I can show that that is my home."
-- SAFE Community Group Member
Safe Mothers, Safe Babies takes great satisfaction in measuring and celebrating successes. Although we have always sought to measure our impact, a validation grant from 2015 - 2017 allowed us to assess that impact at the population level through a cross-sectional survey measuring important indicators before and after a 2-year intervention in a new region. What we found was that mortality for all pregnancy outcomes reduced by 29.2% and skilled attendance at birth increased by 15.9% in the SAFE intervention region, where no changes occurred in a comparable control region.
Additionally, consider the following snapshot of SAFE impact in health facilities and individual community groups:
Improved Referrals
Complicated pregnancies in SAFE facilities were referred 15.7% less often than cases in non-SAFE facilities (Chi2(1)=5.45, Pr=0.02). Yet, they were still as likely to be referred for serious complications, suggesting that SAFE facilities are better prepared to delineate and address mild problems.
Emergency Preparedness
SAFE facilities scored 60% higher on basic emergency obstetric care evaluations than non-SAFE facilities in the same area.
Empowered Women
92% of SAFE community groups fill at least 1/3 of their leadership positions with women; more than 50% of the groups fill 3/4 of their leadership positions with women and 71% of surveyed women from SAFE community groups reported feeling empowered as leaders as a result of their work with SAFE
Engaged Fathers
45% of surveyed SAFE community group members reported that SAFE's involvement of men in maternal health issues was essential to improving maternal and child health