Community monitoring of children's health by "Sponsor Mothers" in Senegal

Plan Senegal implemented a pilot project (2009-11) which consisted of monitoring of children's health through teams composed of mothers at the health hut (health clinic) of Beul Gueye.Each mother was chosen at random as the "sponsor mother" of the biological child of another mother.Each "sponsor" followed her "child" during the various aspects of child growth: vaccination, weighing, nutritional monitoring, disease prevention, personal hygiene, interviews with the birth parents.The village was divided into 4 sections with a group of mothers in each; each quarter, there was a monitoring team of 5 other mothers.The monitoring team of 20 was to oversee the "sponsor mothers" in different aspects: the presence of all mothers at health meetings, collecting monthly contributions of mothers, prevention and proper management of childhood illness, compliance with medical appointments. Monthly, each contributed a certain amount of funds, which was then allocated to “sponsor” mothers whose "children" showed signs of weak health at the the last weighing to use this money to strengthen the nutrition, health and relationship of their "child". At the end of each quarter, the team presented their groups efforts to the whole village, before resigning to make room for another 20 women selected; all women in the village thus were part of the monitoring team at different times.Results: % of fully immunized children, 39% (baseline) to 100%, the proportion of children monthly weighed, 30% (BL) to 100%, ANC visits (four or more), 25% (BL) to 100%; young men have now committed to join the monitoring teams.