MILCOT was born in 2017 and was fully registered in 2019.

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Born  in a remote setting of Rakai district, Harriet Nayiga is the seventh born of 10 children.  Her community was hit by poverty, not many people could afford to send their children to school, it was characterized by a lot of teenage pregnancies. The community did not have professional role models however Harriet grow up watching her mother, a strong and kind peasant woman who was very instrumental in supporting fellow local women through local development programs mainly in farming and micro saving groups.  Harriet attended school at the expense of her older siblings, some of her elders did not accomplish their education because they had to work and provide for her education. As she advanced in her primary education in Masaka district, she admired the nurse’s uniform of a nurse who used to come to school to immunize students. After passing her advanced level of education with flying colors, Harriet received a merit government scholarship to undertake a diploma in Midwifery at Mulago School of Nursing and Midwifery.  

Working in and out of the labour suite, she later developed a soft spot especially for young mothers. She says every single day she witnessed young mothers helplessly walking into the labour suite without any attendant or the required necessities. And because midwives are busy with large numbers of women, young mothers do not receive enough care, these are the mothers Harriet usually looked out for. “I would go around the labour ward sourcing gloves and cotton for them. I would offer to be their attendant while in the labour suite, responding to what the senior midwives kept asking for.”  For two years this became her routine and responsibility to look after young mothers that had no one by their side in hospital. Her general care for women and children went beyond physical healing to soothing of the soul.

Harriet graduated in 2013 where she was awarded as the best practical midwife of the year. Harriet then worked for 3 years with, Wakisa Ministries an organization that provides temporary shelter and counselling for pregnant teenagers with crisis pregnancies. Here she worked as full time midwife/house mother, she took provided general care for these pregnant teenagers, took them to hospital for antenatal visits, provided health talks on pregnancy, postnatal and infant care and taught them how to make handcraft items for economic sustainability. Here Harriet there were challenges in the provision of maternal healthcare services in Uganda especially lack of Sexual and Reproductive Health Information among the young people. Harriet was mostly burdened by the way society judged the young mothers whenever she walked with them into the hospital. She upgraded with a Bachelor of Science in Midwifery which she accomplished in 2018 from Aga khan University.

Birth of MILCOT

Among the many cases Harriet handled in hospital, was a 17-year-old mother who almost lost her life because of a severe bleeding. In the struggle to save the teen mother’s life, she was rushed to the theatre but bled all the way. She says midwives and doctors did all they could, but the bleeding could not stop and the only way they could stop the bleeding was to remove her uterus.

“This tore my heart into pieces, leaving me with no proper words of comfort,” narrates Nayiga”.

This moment forced Harriet to leave the labour suite and work closely with the community, where she can easily be accessed and avail adolescents with first-hand information for prevention rather than responding to complications. According to Harriet, adolescent mothers face grave discrimination, lack sexual and reproductive health information poverty and because of that they tend to go to hospital late, after complications have already emerged. It is the aim why Midwife –led Community Transformation (MILCOT) was born to prevent teenage and unplanned pregnancies and these related complications that lead to maternal deaths. She believes midwives are the people with the right information, but unfortunately they are locked up in labour suites.  Yet the problems faced by mothers need to be solved from the ground before this woman gets to labour suite.

When hope and healing is born

With a humble beginning, Harriet established MILCOT in her community of Nansana Municipality, the largest municipality in Uganda with a total population of 465,000 people, of which 186,236 are adolescents and young adults aged 10–24. It has a population growth rate of 4.1% – well above the national average of 3.1% and it is characterized by a number of slum settlements.

As a young midwife who had just qualified, she offered her rented house for organization’s work and sacrificed her meagre resources to serve the community. She started by meeting with young people in community gatherings, vulnerable homes and schools and provided information and counselling. Her prayer and goal was to share the story of her vision through her work with people who would feel the way I felt and join her. Soon an amazing team of people who are as passionate about serving vulnerable communities was formed.

Where we are now.

With the support of our local and international partners, MILCOT has so far reached over 1000 marginalized adolescents and young adults. Our work has attained local and global recognition. In 2019,Harriet was selected as a young innovative midwife by Nursing Now global campaign and she was selected by International Confederation of Midwives as one of the 10 global young Midwife leaders.

MILCOT won the Award of Excellence in Advancing Maternal and Child Healthcare given by the MoH at the Heroes In Health Awards ceremony 2021 and won the Nursing Now Challenge International Nurses Day Award of Innovation 2022.