Together for Her and Raah Foundation partner giving access to maternal healthcare in rural areas

Together for Her, a maternal healthcare programme developed by Avegen and Raah Foundation have announced a partnership to improve access to affordable maternal care and reduce maternal mortality in low-income areas. The collaboration will start with a pilot project in remote rural areas of the Palghar district.

This collaboration will connect online and offline by using content from the Together for Her App and make it accessible for women who don’t have access to digital tools, such as smartphones or laptops. Together for Her will convert the content of their maternal healthcare app into offline print material and Raah Foundation will use the content of the Together for Her-App to share and spread awareness about maternal health. The health workers will also collect reviews about the women’s delivery experience offline and convert them online via Together for Her’s online review system.

“Most causes for maternal mortality in India are preventable, but one big obstacle is lack of information mostly caused by the lack of access to it”, said Anne Reijns, Director — Together for Her, Avegen. “In urban areas, we use technology to spread awareness and to engage with pregnant women via our app or our online review system. Here, we have significantly improved the quality of care for pregnant women. However, women in rural areas usually don’t have digital devices at their disposal so we need to be creative to deliver the same information to them.”

Together for Her has already reached more than 37,000 reviews via their online review system allowing pregnant women to choose their hospital of delivery based on the ratings of other women. The Mumbai-based programme also collaborates with over 1,200, which are using their reviews to act on feedback and improve their quality of care. In partnership with Raah Foundation, the two companies join forces to tackle rural India’s maternal healthcare.

“In our mission to empower women to get a voice about issues that matter to them, we are always looking for the right partners. Together for Her enables pregnant women to make informed choices about their care. Through our partnership, we want to make reliable pregnancy-related information accessible to women living in low-income pockets”, said Dr Sarika Kulkarni, Director, Raah Foundation. “Jointly, we aim to increase access to the appropriate maternal and postpartum care to women.”