Of the solar-powered GPS tracking bracelets saving Kenyan mothers and babies in the arid regions
By Samuel Abuya
The GPS bracelets in the hands of pregnant mothers in the semi-arid areas of north-eastern Kenya may pass as ‘simple, normal bracelets’ – when looked from afar. But in a closer look, they are solar-powered GPS bracelets that are helping health workers to monitor pregnant mothers from the pastoralist communities in the north-eastern parts of Kenya.
The solar-powered GPS bracelets presents a piece of technology that really has come in handy for some pastoralists communities in Kenya thanks to the fact that, initially, it was really a tall order for health workers to locate the pregnant mothers and their children because of their nature of moving from one place to the other in search of water and food.
The technology behind GPS bracelets has created a lot of enthusiasm among the mothers towards the monthly health check-ups carried out in makeshift clinics, mostly under trees. At least expectant women have received the solar powered bracelets fitted with GPS trackers, with the furthest coming from almost more than 100km away from a health facility.
The project works in that a local health team lets the women know when the doctor, nutritionist or nurse will pay them a visit.
According to Dahabo Adi Galgallo, an epidemiologist who started the whole project, each visit sees more than 150 women attended to, both those with the GPS bracelets and those without.
“Due to international laws, we can only monitor them and provide help when they come back,” Galgallo said.
Galgallo grew up in the same area and saw the kind of challenges that women in the area, especially the pregnant ones, went through as they moved around with their livestock looking for pasture and water. Galagallo recalls how home deliveries were a common thing with some women dying out of excessive bleeding while giving birth and some children also dying out of malnutrition. This served as a motivation factor for Galgallo to pursue a career in the health profession.
“That women were dying from pregnancies was known – what was not known was the extent of these deaths,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
That is how Galgallo came up with the idea of creating the GPS bracelets with a GPS tracking system to help locate the pregnant pastoralists women and their children as they keep moving from place to the other.
Galgallo feted for the GPS bracelets
In the year 2017, Galagallo won a $100,000 Grand Challenges Africa grant from the African Academy of Sciences, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to put her concept into practice.
The GPS bracelets by Galgallo are not only small and easily wearable but are also waterproof and culturally designed with bright orange local beads. The bracelets are automatically and easily chargeable through a very small fitted solar panel that absorbs light while on one’s wrist.
Africa Global News Publication
