Causes: Community & Neighborhood Development, Economic Development

Mission: Mali health's mission is to reduce maternal and child mortality in resource-poor communities in west africa. To achieve this, mali health implements replicable programs that improve access to quality primary care at low costs, while increasing the capacity of and participation in local health systems.

Programs: Action for health provides community health worker support and free or subsidized child health services to poor families. Trained health workers provide health education and monitoring to families through home visits. When children fall ill, health workers accompany them to public clinics to receive diagnoses and medicines paid for in part by mali health. The program served approximately 2,000 children in 2014, as well as hundreds of expecting mothers. Since 2012, mali health has partnered with researchers from brown university to conduct a randomized control trial of the program to assess the impact of free and subsidized care on the health of families in mali health's partner communities.

through its health system strengthening initiative, mali health works with partner clinics to improve the quality, capacity, and accessibility of health care services delivered to mothers and children through primary care facilities. Utilizing proven quality improvement techniques pioneered in some of the world's largest corporations, mali health mobilizes teams of doctors, nurses, administrators, community management committees, and patients to identify and address opportunities for improvements in services. The program targets growth in four indicators: prenatal care coverage for all women; clinic-based births; childhood vaccination coverage; and the functionality of community management committees. The program currently operates in four communities, all of which have seen improvements in all four indicators.

mali health's radio show promotes health education, disease prevention, and community mobilization around health. The show is broadcast twice weekly by local announcer's on bamako's most popular radio station. In this way, mali health disseminates health education to thousands of people each year who may not be reached through its other, in-person programs. The health radio show was a prominent part of the effort to disseminate information about ebola prevention before, during, and after the disease outbreak in mali. Mali health's advocacy groups for health are comprised of citizens from mali's partner communities. Trained by mali health's facilitators, these groups have the skills to advocate for positive and sustainable changes in the health system. Advocacy groups encourage participation in the local health system and ensure that the voice of the people is heard by local authorities.

in response to the outbreak of ebola virus disease in west africa, mali health mobilized its team to protect malian citizens from the virus before it reached mali's borders. Highly trained community health workers led trainings with families, individuals, and community groups on how to prevent the spread of the illness. Mali health trained staff and patients within health clinics in prevention of ebola transmission, as well as proper response to identified cases, in addition to equipping clinics with sanitation stations to reduce the likelihood of transmission. When ebola did arrive in the country, mali health partnered with cdc, who, and others to lead the containment efforts, monitoring hundreds of individuals throughout the capital who were at risk of contraction through patient contact. Mali was declared ebola-free in january 2015. Mali health also expanded its pilot program, health savings, enrolling over 1,000 women by the end of 2014. Through the program, women meet in small groups for health education and to learn financial management skills. The women pool money into two accounts, from which group members are eligible to withdraw no-interest loans for health expenses, or interest-bearing loans for revenue-generating activities.