Projects
Investing in Mothers' Lives
Investing in women's lives is an investment in growth, in sustainable development, in human rights, and in future generations. Help us make sure that moms get the funding they deserve!
This month, President Obama proposed $700 million in funding for maternal health and $590 million for reproductive health and family planning. These are significant increases over last year's budget and they represent a critical new commitment to safe motherhood. The Liya Kebede Foundation is working hard to make sure that this funding stays in the budget, but we need your help!
We're launching a campaign to make sure that our leaders know that investing in mothers is vital to our national interests. Sign up for email updates on our home page and let your Senators and Representatives know that you care about maternal health today!
Click here to send a message to Congress
Health Extension Workers
The Ethiopian Ministry of Health launched an innovative program to place health extension workers in every village to ensure that all Ethiopians have access to basic preventative health care. The 30,000 health extension workers are young women from the communities they serve. They provide a wide array of services to their communities from nutritional counseling and immunizations to hygiene and family planning. The Health Extension Workers are the first line of defense in Ethiopia's health system and the most able to reach at-risk women. The Liya Kebede Foundation is working to support these young women and their work.
Watch the video to learn more about the Health Extension Worker program:
Hawassa Maternal Health Clinic
The Liya Kebede Foundation is working with ENAHPA, the Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association, to build a model Maternal Health Clinic in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The area is in desperate need of specialized services to care for expectant mothers including providing C-sections and incubators for infants in distress. Too often, mothers and babies are secondary concerns in larger clinics. The Hawassa Maternal Health Clinic, which is already under construction, will serve as a model for comprehensive maternal care. If our model is a success, the Ethiopian government has already committed to building nine more clinics across the country.
Click here to visit the ENAHPA website
Durame Hospital
The Durame Hospital is the only hospital serving more than 850,000 people in rural Ethiopia. This hospital, supported by the health centers and health posts, is the only source of life-saving care for patients for hundreds of miles. Although the hospital has a new building and a dedicated staff of doctors and nurses, it faces major challenges. The hospital lacks access to safe water supplies, needed medical equipment and transportation for patients.
When the hospital opened, the Liya Kebede Foundation made a commitment to support the Durame Hospital and ensure it has the tools to give proper care to mothers and their newborn children. We have already sent supplies and equipment to the hospital and we are dedicated to continuing our support.
Hamlin Fistula Hospital
For every woman who dies in child birth, twenty more will suffer debilitating and often lifelong injuries. Injuries such as fistula - literally a hole between the mother’s vagina and her bladder or rectum that is caused by obstructed labor and avoided in the developed world through medical intervention - often leave women isolated, rejected by their communities and unable to support themselves.
The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has been treating fistulas and giving women back their lives for more than three decades. Today, the hospital provides free fistula repair surgery to approximately 1,200 women every year and cares for 35 long-term patients. In 2006, Liya Kebede travelled to Ethiopia to launch the WHO obstetric fistula manual at the hospital and we remain committed to supporting the important work of the Hamlin Fistula Hospital.
Click here to visit the Fistula Foundation website
Champions for an HIV Free Generation
AIDS represents one of the greatest leadership challenges of our time. The Champions for an HIV-Free Generation are highly visibly leaders and outspoken advocates for those affected and infected by HIV. They include four former African presidents, a Nobel Laureate, and other high-level African leaders from different walks of life, including model and activist Liya Kebede. The Champions focus their efforts in sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV. With a focus on proven HIV prevention practices, the Champions embrace and promote key policy, legal, cultural and behavioral practices and messages that help accelerate the social outcomes needed to achieve an HIV-free generation.
The collaborating partners of this initiative are the World Bank, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and PEPFAR.
Click here to visit the Champions website
