Through Mama, health workers are now able to identify themselves as maternal health champions within humanitarian organizations or in the field and to join a community of practice. Maternal health practitioners will, though five innovative applications, be able to seek advice from fellow members, share best practices and lessons learned, assess their own practices/skills level and test their knowledge of the MISP (minimal initial service package).   Mama also offers rewards through digital badges for actions taken as well as a  ‘Lives Saved Counter’ application through which the community can register when they enabled a safe birth, showing the positive impact of their work.

Mama is also an unprecedented initiative as it addresses the isolation faced by many health workers in the field through the use of new technology. For the first time, practitioners who may not have access to the Internet or smart phones will be able to send their questions/comments about maternal health to the Facebook community via SMS. This text message is posted to the Mama wall and member news feeds through a Facebook application. The other community members can reply to the question and the answer is sent as a text message back to the practitioner. The answer is filtered by the community and has to be recommended (”liked”) by three members before it is sent.

The project also involves expert Mama Mentors who provide advice, technical updates and answer specific questions.  The community will focus on different technical/programmatic themes each month and new mentors will be invited to join in and support discussions.

We are very proud of this innovative project and look forward to providing continued support to Mama and WRC!

To hear a good summary of lessons learnt, listen to the podcast released by The Chronicle of Philanthropy where Wendy Harman, social media manager at the American Red Cross, and Geoff Livingston, chief marketing officer at Zoetica Media, discuss the opportunities and drawbacks associated with this emerging fundraising tool.