Congressional Delegation Visits Family Planning Ward at Tanzanian Clinic

During a trip to East Africa in mid-February, Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) visited the Makongoro Health Centre near Mwanza, in northwest Tanzania. EngenderHealth’s ACQUIRE Tanzania Project partners with the family planning department at Makongoro and has trained health care staff, conducted workshops to improve the quality of services, and provided informational and educational materials for clients on contraceptive methods. This project is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The delegation visited Makongoro’s family planning ward, accompanied by EngenderHealth’s Mwanza Field Office Manager, Juliana Bantambya, and saw firsthand the great demand that exists for quality family planning services. Upon arrival, the delegation observed a clinic staff member conducting an educational talk on family planning to a full waiting room of women and couples. The senators met a woman who had delivered 14 children, and she and her husband had decided they no longer wanted children and sterilization was the answer. Twenty other women in the ward were awaiting sterilization through minilapartomy—a quick, highly effective, safe outpatient procedure performed under local anesthesia.

Read more about EngenderHealth’s work in Tanzania.