2017

A Year of Progress

At Rural Health Collaborative, we train women to help their communities be healthier. This has always been our mission and we moved even closer to our goal in 2017. Read more below.

NGO

RHC Celebrated its 6th birthday this year


And next month we turn 7!

Our programs continue to strengthen with each passing year


And this year we launched two new Taskforces: Monitoring/Evaluation and Fundraising

In August we officially received our International NGO  paperwork from the Ghanaian government


The process took over 2 years and we’re so glad it’s done

And last month we signed a lease on our (as yet unfurnished) RHC Ghana office!


It will be a meeting space for the Kekeli Women, our staff, and local partners

As we did 2 years ago, our USA Team held a strategic planning session in Portland


Topics ranged from program longevity to increasing women in leadership

And for the first time we had a staff retreat for our Ghana team


Based on feedback from the training, we added Skill Development to our RHC Values

We also signed agreements with two partners this year as part of our new smartphone program


The partners are Medic Mobile and InvestED (read more about the smartphone program below)

KEKELI

There are 47 Kekeli Women working in 47 different communities in rural Ghana


These women are the heart, soul, hands and feet of RHC. Click here for an idea of the scale where the Kekeli Women work.

Our community health promoter retention rate is nearly 93% over our 6 year history


The typical retention rate is 50-70% for most health promotion programs. We believe our ongoing investment in the women sets our program apart, and have heard as much from our Ghana team.

In fact, two former Kekeli Women have asked to re-join the program!


They previously left because they moved away, but have since returned to the district

The Kekeli Women led over 1000 community events in 2017


Teaching various health topics, performing blood pressure screenings, and dressing wounds

They taught over 25,000 individuals from over 100 different communities


This is more than 8,000 people more than they taught in 2016!

The RHC Ghana staff monitored 30% of these community events in person


This is down from 63% in 2016, and below our goal of 50%. There are several reasons for the decline (personal illness, family deaths, motivation, etc), and we are actively working to improve this rate.

In August, the third group of Kekeli Women learned the Home-Based Life Saving Skills Curriculum


All the Kekeli Women have now completed this course, which helps prevent and prepare for emergencies during childbirth

The women also received blood pressure cuffs and learned how to perform BP screenings in their communities


This program was organized by a team of from the Point Loma Nazarene University Nursing School, our partners since 2015

We launched a new Prenatal Monitoring Program that uses a smartphone application to track pregnant women in the community


12 of the 47 Kekeli Women are part of this pilot

We also worked with our partner InvestED to create 6 animated pregnancy videos


These videos educate pregnant women to visit the clinic and deliver with the help of a skilled attendant

All 47 Kekeli Women participate in the video program


The videos  are loaded on their smartphones, which they then show to pregnant women and their families during their pregnancy home visits

Our team worked to translate the videos into Ewe using locals as voice actors


Click here to view English versions of the videos, which star a fictional Kekeli Woman named Samira

And of course the newest Kekeli Women received bicycles earlier this month


Bikes help the Kekeli Women reach more distant communities in their work

And we also honor the losses of the past year


Victoria and Regina both lost their husbands and Theresa’s son passed away

The Kekeli Women have become like family and support each other in difficult times like these


Your donations also support a Kekeli welfare fund to be used in times of illness and loss

TEAM

For the first time (maybe ever) there were no changes to the RHC USA or RHC Ghana teams this year


And we are quite happy about that!

We continue to refine our roles within the group, seeking to marry our individual passions with the work that is needed

With Olivia and Jason overseas, the RHC team has mastered the art of digital teamwork


This can make for some interesting meeting times 🙂

Half the RHC USA team returned to Ghana in August


It was the busiest trip we’ve ever had. We taught the full HBLSS curriculum, launched the smartphone program, and…

Our friends Sergio and Sarah from Furnace FPS volunteered their time to join us for 10 days and film our work!


We’ve been dreaming of hosting them for years and we finally made it a reality

They shot hours of video and recorded many interviews


We can’t wait to show you what the Kekeli Women really do through film (slated for the first half of 2018)

All this work is done because we believe so strongly in the power of the Kekeli Women


We all volunteer our time, and couldn’t be happier to do it

SUPPORTERS

We often pinch ourselves when thinking about how amazing our supporters are


We are so lucky; without you there would simply be no RHC

We have 51 monthly supporters, who make up The Collective


Together, they donate about $1000 each month, which covers nearly half our routine program expenses in Ghana

The Collective is the backbone of RHC, keeping us upright no matter what


To join them, click here (and you just might receive a handwritten note from a Kekeli Woman someday!)

And we can’t leave out the 271 individual donations that were made in 2017


These one-time donations help us pay for trainings and ongoing expenses, when our monthly donations don’t reach

…and our board continues to provide us wisdom and perspective along the way


Blake Armstrong, Chair

Melissa Tucker, Vice-Chair

Raphaelle de Marliave, Secretary

Eric Schulz, Treasurer

Sean Poole, At-large

FINANCIALS

In our fiscal year 2016/17 we raised $53,788


91%  went directly to our work in Ghana (the remainder pays for things like insurance, credit card fees, and the website)

Over the summer we raised over $5000 for our new smartphone program


The money bought actual phones but also paid for the training that happened in August

And our Giving Tuesday Kekeli Bike Sale raised over $2500 in less than a week!


The extra funds were used to buy gifts of rice and oil for the Kekeli Women and their families

For a deep dive of our finances, click here


As always, if you have any questions about what we do or how we spend your money, please reach out to us

We take extraordinary care to be sure every dollar is spent wisely


It is why we include among our values: Responsible with Resources

Our organization has a Gold Transparency Rating from GuideStar


We’ll go Platinum as soon as we can!

Our work in Ghana is rewarding, challenging, and is making an impact on all involved


It is also a collaboration in the richest sense—across cultures and also with you

Your support helps bring health to rural Akatsi


Please follow along with us in 2018 via our email newsletter, on Facebook, and Instagram

AKPE! (THANK YOU)


For being part of  our mission to empower women and bring health to rural Ghana  in 2017. We’re excited for what lies ahead.