Improving maternal and child health under the Muskoka initiative

The project aims to improve maternal and child health:Build the community’s capacities in order to encourage people to seek out maternal and child healthcare (MCH) and family planning (FP) and promote sexual and reproductive rights: provide effective access to MCH/FP healthcare, which will be increased by the activities to strengthen health centers and structure referral systems.Improve the quality of health structures and upgrade their mother/child and reproductive services: 21 health structures have been pre-identified (7 for each department). The strategy will be based on a skills transfer at several levels: Strengthen the departmental health departments and district health centers (DHC) to provide the population with access to high-quality and appropriate MCH/FP services.This project aims to develop a major institutional support component for the health authorities. The institutions will receive technical and financial assistance in order to build their capacities to conduct and supervise the MCH/FP activities. Gender/adolescent health, integration of psychosocial issues: Gender-related violence is widespread in Haiti. 13% of women have been victims of sexual violence during their lifetime and 28% of women aged between 15 and 49 have been victims of physical violence. The project will take psychosocial issues into account in a cross-cutting manner. Nutrition: The project will work on malnutrition prevention, in conjunction with the Nutrition Strategic Plan 2013-2018: focus on prevention and awareness-raising activities, by integrating prevention and detection into reproductive health (RH) services. Special attention will be paid to the level of post-natal consultations.