India has one of the highest maternal and child
mortality and morbidity rates in the world.
In the next one hour,
four women will die in childbirth
somewhere in India.
Two children under age five
will die every minute.
And since India accounts for almost one sixth
of the world's population,
unless India's maternal and child health indices improve,
the world is going to suffer in the future.
Why does a mother or child die in India
or any country in the world?
There's a "Three Delay" model that can explain that.
The first delay is lack of access
to preventative care information.
If she's not aware of the danger signs,
the complications, she will not access care.
The second delay is when there's an emergency,
there's no transportation, there are no roads,
she can't get to a place where she can access care.
And third delay is when she reaches a hospital,
there is no staff, there is no training,
no equipment, no supplies.
She can't get the care she deserves.
These loss of lives are completely preventable.
One day I was in my rural village in Karnataka
and I saw a tribal woman with a mobile phone
and suddenly it struck me.
Mobile phone, an easy to use technology,
is ubiquitous in the country.
Why couldn't I use the mobile phone
to reach across to women with information--
when she needs it--directly to her?
And so, I started ARMMAN.
Our first innovation was mMitra, that's "Mobile Friend."
It's a free voice call service
to reach across to women with critical information.
It's also got a call center
where trained counselors can be reached
for any information that a woman requires.
What I realized very early on
that information alone is not enough.
And so, in parts of the country
which were completely inaccessible
to the public health system,
we converted village community health workers
into health entrepreneurs who went home to home
provide home-based antenatal and infancy care.
mMitra scaled across nine states of country quickly
and the government noticed the success,
and they approached us in 2019 for implementation
of their Kilkari Program.
Kilkari is a government scaled-up voice call service
similar to mMitra and they were looking for a partner
to extend healthcare throughout India.
We needed a strong partner
which had proven capabilities
of implementing in mhealth programs.
I'm quite confident with the capacities of ARMMAN.
They'll be able to scale up the program
successfully across the country
to support health, nutrition, early childhood development.
We've also entered into an understanding
with the government of India
to implement the Mobile Academy Program.
Mobile Academy is a continuing education program
of community health workers where they're trained
in both counseling and soft communication skills.
When we started mMitra,
the most transformational thing we saw
was that information is empowerment.
These women had developed agency.
They were standing up to their families,
to the communities, demanding that they be heard,
and were demanding better rights for their girl children.
This intergenerational change that women were bringing about
is, in my mind, the most transformational thing
for the mother and the child.