Project profile — Improving Maternal Participation and Access to Community Training

• Guatemala (70.00%)
• Honduras (30.00%)

• Basic nutrition:
Basic nutrition (12240) (10.45%)
Health education (12261) (83.51%)
• Population Policies/Programmes And Reproductive Health: Reproductive health care (13020) (6.04%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (significant objective)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

The project, Improving Maternal Participation and Access to Community Training (IMPACT), aims to increase the utilization and improve the delivery of culturally appropriate health services to pregnant and lactating mothers and their children in 111 hard-to-reach indigenous communities in Guatemala and Honduras. Project activities include: (1) providing maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) centres with essential health care equipment and ensuring that they are adequately staffed with well-trained MNCH aides; (2) delivery of lactation workshops, as well as one-on-one counseling and support, to encourage women to initiate early and exclusive breastfeeding of their infants for at least five months; (3) delivering awareness raising workshops among key decision-makers in communities of MNCH related health risks, and enabling the health-related decision-making of vulnerable women; and (4) delivery of nutrition demonstration workshops to pregnant and lactating women. This project is expected to contribute to the improved health of 68,400 women and children, including 13,800 girls and 13,300 boys. In addition, more than 160,000 people are expected to benefit indirectly. CAUSE Canada is implementing this project in collaboration with CAUSE Honduras, CAUSE Guatemala and Instituticion Mam de Desarrollo Integral (IMDI).

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased use of MNCH services by pregnant women, mothers and children under 5 years in target regions of Guatemala and Honduras; (2) improved gender-sensitive delivery of essential health services by trained MNCH male and female practitioners for target communities in Guatemala and Honduras; and (3) increased consumption of nutritional food and supplements by pregnant and lactating mothers as well as their children under 5 years of age in targeted regions in Guatemala and Honduras.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (November 2020) include: (1) increased the rate of pregnant women receiving four or more prenatal visits to 81% in Guatemala, against a target of 80%, and 83.5% in Honduras, against a target of 85%; (2) supported the percentage of pregnant women and mothers who reported satisfaction with access to maternal, newborn and child health services in the past year in reaching 88% in Guatemala and 99.5% in Honduras, against a target of 50%; (3) supported the rate of women believing that they can participate in community health meetings equally in reaching 86.5% in Guatemala and 100% in Honduras, against a target of 80%; (4) delivered 1,120 nutrition workshops (848 in Guatemala and 272 in Honduras) for 16,380 pregnant and lactating women and mothers of children under the age of five, to improve women’s and babies’ diets; and (5) facilitated 93% of health practitioners in Guatemala and 89.5% in Honduras in identifying at least two priority gender issues in maternal, newborn and child health, against a target of 100%.

• Proactive disclosure