Nepal: A Year After the Earthquake

In  2015, Nepal experienced a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that delivered multiple aftershocks and inflicted damage on almost half of the country’s districts. Over 8,000 people were killed in the quake, and thousands more were injured.

An earthquake of this size in a country like Nepal where extreme poverty hampers infrastructure, the impact is far worse, both in the tragic loss of life and in their ability to bounce back and rebuild in the years to come.

Health infrastructure was particularly hard hit, and an estimated 126,000 pregnant women were affected by this tragedy. A large number of maternal clinics were destroyed or sustained damage from the disaster. This destruction resulted in increased rates of unsafe and unsanitary deliveries, where many women were giving birth on streets because of the lack of access to clinics. And for the health workers who are available to these women, even they have a difficult time providing emergency services critical to mothers’ and babies’ survival because the nearest health facilities are days away, separated by massive mountains, rivers and impassable terrain.

ODW + One Heart World-Wide

Immediately after the earthquake, One Day’s Wages set out to provide emergency relief to those hardest hit by the earthquake in Nepal. We worked with our partners to provide lifesaving medical care, food, water and shelter.

But one of our core values is to continue supporting disaster-affected areas in the long-term, providing sustainable development to help families experiencing poverty improve their livelihoods. That’s why we’re coming alongside our partner One Heart World-Wide to improve the health of mothers in Nepal.

This project will train and equip 711 female community health volunteers with mobile health (mHealth) technology to communicate with the nearest health facilities about maternal care emergencies. By increasing the presence of skilled birthing attendants at birth and establishing an emergency notification system, we hope to prevent maternal and neonatal deaths for 7,000 pregnant women and their newborns.