Midwife-led Community Transformation (MILCOT) wins award for advancing Maternal and Child Healthcare in Uganda.
Earlier this month, MILCOT was selected from thousands of nominations for the Heroes In Health Awards (HIHA) and was awarded the excellence prize in advancing maternal and child healthcare.
MILCOT is a community-based organisation founded and led by Harriet Nayiga, a Nursing Now Challenge champion. MILCOT aims to bring midwifery services closer to the community through preventive initiatives focusing on providing sexual and reproductive health guidance and survival skills to marginalised adolescents and young adults in order to prevent teenage and unplanned pregnancies. MILCOT also works to support midwives and nurses in developing their leadership skills.
MILCOT’s Founder and Director, Harriet Nayiga attended the HIHA award ceremony on 12th November 2021 at the Serena Hotel, Kampala, Uganda. This celebration of excellence in health care was attended by Her Excellency the Vice president of the Republic of Uganda as well as the Minister of Health of Uganda, and the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, Uganda’s Minister of Health attended the award ceremony and said:
“Today I have taken time to look at the health workers and the people being recognised and many of you will agree with me that the public made the right choice and we want to appreciate the public for the choices that they made […] Harriet Nayiga has dedicated her career to sacrificially serve marginalised adolescents and young adults ensuring that they survive, thrive and transform. In addition, she has stood as an example in her country and the world through inspiring and influencing and empowering midwives and nurses to practice as problem solvers and she has participated in a number of local and global discussions on maternal and child health while advocating for increased investment into nursing and midwifery professions.”
Harriet explained, “I and my team are very excited and humbled to receive this recognition from the Ministry of Health, it is going to help us bring more partners on board to support more marginalised adolescents and young adults in our community as well as extending the services to different parts of the country […] I am happy that I am able to give back to my country through my work at MILCOT and our work having been recognised today is very humbling and motivating. I strongly hope that this award will speak to other governments around the world and prompt them to recognise and support midwife-led innovations. We thank all the people who nominated MILCOT and all our partners for their support.”
Huge congratulations to Harriet and the MILCOT team!