Nairobi’s Korogocho is a densely populated informal settlement, home to thousands of Kenyans. Access to basic services remains difficult in the heart of the slum and expectant women are high on the list of individuals who face life and death choices in the pursuit of everyday activities. Women who go into labour in the wee hours of the night, face a difficult choice as venturing into the streets presents its own danger. As a result, several women – and their unborn babies have died during their final contractions because they’ve been unable to get to a medical centre on time.
Aggrey Willis Otieno was brought up in Korogocho, keenly aware of the tales of mother-infant deaths within his community. This reality came home when his pregnant sister faced the same dilemma, needing to deliver her baby in the middle of the night. After a harrowing twenty-four hours trying to get her safely to a health facility she finally delivered her infant son in safety.
After graduating from Moi University, Aggrey spent several years working in informal settlements around Nairobi to ease the challenges faced by children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. Selection as an International Fellow under the Ford Foundation allowed him to pursue his masters in International Studies, Communication and Development at Ohio University in the US.
However, despite the years the close call of his sister’s delivery left an imprint on Aggrey and he found himself looking at the problem with a fresh resolve. The problems that women and children faced in Korogocho became the foundation for Pambuzuka Mashinani, a grassroots initiative he formed to connect expectant women to the medical care they needed through a simple text messaging system. The plaform known as M-birth became the backbone of a system to connect midwives, labouring mothers and doctors. Doctors could determine emergency cases that required mothers to be transported out of Korogocho to a nearby medical facility, while midwives gained quality backstopping support.
Aggrey Otieno tapped into a resource that is easily available within the slum – a basic phone that uses text messaging. The system also relied on a network of Safe Delivery Advocates who worked at the front line of connecting women to health care. In 2012, Aggrey was awarded the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, an honour that since 1976 has lauded extraordinary individuals who possess the courage and conviction to take on major challenges.
The boy from Korogocho grew into the empathetic man who used his innate understanding of his community to innovate around simple technology and make a difference for women and their children. Hongera Aggrey Otieno – champion of change!
