The newly announced Internet.org free internet service in Tanzania by Facebook will greatly benefit expectant mothers through BabyCenter®, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), and Praekelt Foundation.
The three organizations will provide maternal, newborn and child health content to expectant women and new mothers through the new platform.
BabyCenter creates content for MAMA’s open source messages and for country programs in Bangladesh, South Africa, India and soon, Nigeria and developed expert pregnancy and baby content for Internet.org. Praekelt is MAMA’s main implementing partner in South Africa, and built the technology platform being used to share the content with Internet.org.
“At BabyCenter, we believe that all moms deserve to have a healthy pregnancy. For nearly two decades, we have provided moms around the world with expert advice and emotional support, empowering them to better care for their families,” says Colleen Hancock, COO of BabyCenter.
“We are excited to leverage our expertise to support moms in Tanzania and other low resource settings through this rewarding partnership with Facebook’s Internet.org initiative.”
“We are seeing people in developing countries increasingly make the leap from no Internet access to access to the Internet through mobile phones,” says Kirsten Gagnaire, Executive Director of MAMA.
“That’s why we felt it was important to be in on the initial stages of this work, which has the potential to reach millions more women with critical health information than we could through MAMA’s country programs alone.”
According to statistics, 800 women die daily due to complicated pregnancies and 3.1 children die annually not going past their first birthday. Some deaths can be prevented through the spread of information and knowledge.
