This car has a special job, for a village called Bardo in northern Nigeria.
It’s saving the lives of pregnant women and their babies.
The nearest hospital is 30km away.
Before the car arrived, it took too long to get people there in an emergency.
But now...
Everyone in the village of Bardo has my number, it serves as the
emergency contact. People call on me and I drop whatever I am doing,
whatever time of the day it is, and I run to their aid.
Eighteen pregnant women died in this village over a two year period.
When Halima saw her friends and their babies losing their lives… she had an idea.
To get their own car for emergencies.
We had experienced enough death and hardship as a result of childbirth
because they don't have access to an emergency vehicle.
My water broke at 11pm and kept running all night but despite my husband's efforts
to find a car or even a motorcycle, we were unable to get any help until the following
day. We got a motorcycle that was able to get us to the roadside, where we were
finally able to get a car to hospital. I was able to give birth without a c-section
but my baby was already dead due to all the trauma he had gone through.
If she’d been able to get to hospital sooner, she thinks her baby would have survived.
I gathered the women together so we could talk about a project we could focus on.
They received an allowance from the government to help pay for essentials
and agreed to save some to buy their own emergency vehicle.
In a few months they raised about $3,000.
So we sent someone in our village to buy a car.
On the day it eventually came, we had a huge celebration.
They call the car Haihuwa Lafiya or Safe Motherhood.
The next time Hassana was ready to give birth...
I got my husband to call the driver. We were able to get to the hospital
in good time. As soon as we got there I was well taken care of and gave birth
around 4am. The driver waited for me until I was ready to leave the hospital
and he took me and the babies home.
There’s no doubt, if we didn’t have this car, I would have lost my babies.
Yunusa Mohammed is the driver and the village emergency contact.
As the emergency driver, I always make sure that I keep calm as I drive.
I do this job with a lot of pride and I am always happy to help
in any way I can, because I see it as a duty.
The driver takes about 30 women a month to hospital.
The pregnant woman’s family pay $3 to use the car.
Most of that goes on fuel and maintenance. Yunusa gets a small fee too.
Halima is proud of what they’ve done but thinks they
shouldn’t have had to pay for it themselves.
If the government had provided us with the basic health care facilities we needed then
we wouldn’t have had to use that stipend for something the government
should’ve provided in the first place.
More than 50,000 women die every year in Nigeria
because of complications in childbirth.
When the state governor heard their story, he decided to help other villages.
But instead of buying each one a car, he decided to pay people
who already own a vehicle to drive women to hospital.
Halima is pleased the state is helping other women
but says Bardo won’t switch to the government scheme.
Honestly we would much prefer to have the car here at our disposal
and the driver right here in our town. That way we have control over our
emergency situation. We know it is not perfect but the women in this village
are a team and we make sure issues that affect us are resolved.