Health and Environment
Mother & Child Health Care (MCH) Centre (1996)

The
communities of Kawardu did not have access to medical facilities particularly
for women, infants and children. Before the construction of a hanging bridge between
Kawardu and Skardu, it used to take three – four hours to reach Skardu depending
on the availability of the local private transport. The local communities did
not have the financial capacity to hire a private Jeep to take their pregnant
women, mothers of new-born and infants to the hospital in Skardu in emergency
cases. The result was a high rate of mother and child mortality.
GRACE Association Pakistan designed a project on building the access of mothers
and children to curative and preventive heath care services. The project aimed
at providing mother and child health care services to 3500 female population and
enhancing the access of communities to reproductive health and family planning
services. It has resulted in the availability and access of maternity services
to women of the 16 villages of Kwardu Union Council District Skardu. GAP’s members
were the leading and managing team.
Total cost of the project was PKR 14,00,000. Project was supported by Kfw Germany.
The contribution of the donor is PKR 12,00,000. Project is being managed sustainably
by the organization in collaboration with the district health department government
of Pakistan. This centre provides a meeting place with Lady Health Visitors and
Lady Health Workers. Referal Services are also being provided to the needy wormen
in implementing very effective and sustainable projects through community participation
and by building partnership with external agencies. It established its project
cycle management procedures for execution and delivery (leading and controlling
the projects) i.e. financial management, human resource management, communication,
managing procurements, internal and external evaluation, etc. which have been
standardized over a period of last 15 years of launching and managing micro-development
projects at grassroots level. This experience has led to the organizational growth
and development.