Proud to be a Siphilile woman

Every year, more than five million children die before their fifth birthday and almost 300,000 women perish in connection to pregnancy and childbirth. The reasons for these tragedies are not primarily medical, but a matter of priorities and values. Social and cultural structures maintain destructive power relations, leaving the most vulnerable at risk. In 2012, Siphilile Maternal and Child Health was established in the Kingdom of eSwatini, recruiting and training Mentor Mothers to be peer supporters in their own disadvantaged communities. By addressing culture and gender roles, the Mentor Mothers set an example of how maternal and child health can be improved through empowerment, realizing that power lies in the powerless, and that change starts at the margin. This book is an account of the process to develop and establish Siphilile, and an outside perspective on the Swazi society and culture. By trying to understand a different culture we can get a new perspective on our own, discovering the social structures that bind us.

Mats Målqvist is a Medical Doctor and Professor of Global Health at Uppsala University, Sweden. Between 2013 and 2016 he was the Project Manager/Executive Director for Siphilile Maternal and Child Health in Eswatini. His research aims to evaluate the implementation of interventions for improved maternal and child health and survival, with previous projects in Vietnam and Nepal. Mats Målqvist has a special research focus on inequity in health based on social determinants. His research is interdisciplinary, investigating drivers, mechanisms and outcomes of societal structures.