Health Alliance International (HAI) hosted the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) Global workshop Oct 22-24, 2014 in Timor-Leste and focused on HAI’s Mobile Moms/Liga Inan project. MAMA supported representatives from 14 organizations implementing similar mHealth projects addressing maternal health to attend the workshop.  The 18 participants came from 12 countries, including Myanmar, Cambodia, Nigeria, Malawi, Peru, South Africa, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The participants traveled to the rural district of Manufahi where HAI is implementing the Mobile Moms project.  During a two day site visit they had the opportunity to talk with district midwives responsible for enrolling pregnant women into the program about their engagement with Mobile Moms.   The group was also able to meet with community women enrolled in Mobile Moms and receiving the twice weekly text messages about how to have a healthy pregnancy and safe birth.

Workshop participants learn about how midwives engage with the Mobile Moms project.

After the site visit the group had a full day of discussions about their respective programs.  It is rare when different organizations have the opportunity to come together to share their implementation journeys, discuss the challenges they have faced and solutions they have tested.  There was a spirit of shamelessly stealing good ideas!  Discussions focused on strategies for engaging governments, monitoring and evaluation approaches, how to engage with telecoms to support project, moving from pilot to scale and long term sustainability plans.  It was an extremely productive three days with loads of information sharing and new connections made that will extend beyond the workshop.