SAFE Works: Impact

What People Say:

Women's Empowerment

"Me, as me, I just continue thanking SAFE and appreciating SAFE for what they have done because for me, in my home, I didn’t have anything, I could not even introduce people to my home. But right now, since SAFE came, I am somewhere, I am someone, and I can show that that is my home."

-- SAFE Community Group Member

Safe Mothers, Safe Babies takes great satisfaction in measuring and celebrating successes. Although we have always sought to measure our impact, a validation grant from 2015 - 2017 allowed us to assess that impact at the population level through a cross-sectional survey measuring important indicators before and after a 2-year intervention in a new region. What we found was that mortality for all pregnancy outcomes reduced by 29.2% and skilled attendance at birth increased by 15.9% in the SAFE intervention region, where no changes occurred in a comparable control region.

Additionally, consider the following snapshot of SAFE impact in health facilities and individual community groups:

Improved Referrals

Complicated pregnancies in SAFE facilities were referred 15.7% less often than cases in non-SAFE facilities (Chi2(1)=5.45, Pr=0.02). Yet, they were still as likely to be referred for serious complications, suggesting that SAFE facilities are better prepared to delineate and address mild problems.

Emergency Preparedness

SAFE facilities scored 60% higher on basic emergency obstetric care evaluations than non-SAFE facilities in the same area.

Empowered Women

92% of SAFE community groups fill at least 1/3 of their leadership positions with women; more than 50% of the groups fill 3/4 of their leadership positions with women and 71% of surveyed women from SAFE community groups reported feeling empowered as leaders as a result of their work with SAFE

Engaged Fathers

45% of surveyed SAFE community group members reported that SAFE's involvement of men in maternal health issues was essential to improving maternal and child health

To better understand how this impacts real people, make sure to read our success stories.