Q&A with Jacquie Cutts, Maternal and Child Health Champion

Changemakers is changing. Through the new changeshops platform, we now offer improved ways to help build the world of social good. Changeshops users will be able to tell the online community what they need to grow their projects; search for collaborators, innovators, and competitions in the field; and access funding opportunities for world-changing ideas.

The changeshops community is growing each day. To get a preview of what might be in store, Changemakers is catching up with a few of the platform’s top users.

Today, Changemakers talked (change)shop with Jacquie Cutts, the founder, president, and CEO of Safe Mothers, Safe Babies, a nonprofit organization working to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Uganda.

Cutts has been a long-time supporter of participatory development and has worked to help rural communities understand maternal and child health from the local perspective, in addition to supporting more innovative health care initiatives like motorcycle ambulance programs which reduce barriers to accessing care.

Changemakers: What have you been working on in the New Year?

Cutts: In December of this past year, 2011, my husband and I went to Uganda and installed 21 solar suitcases in rural Ugandan health centers and hospitals where the lack of reliable electricity was making it so that cesarean sections were being conducted by flashlight. A lot of maternal morbidities couldn’t be repaired after deliveries because health workers were trying to use kerosene lanterns and things like that.

We installed solar systems and worked with health centers to do participatory outreach in the community so that there was an increase in the utilization of the services as a direct result of installing the technology.

Safe Mothers, Safe Babies has been working with many diverse partners, in particular those we formed in-country with the Uganda Ministry of Health and the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), and with the White Ribbon Alliance and UNICEF. The goal is to scale-up that project with our U.S. partners, We Care Solar, over the next two years to go into hundreds of health centers, so that’s been the biggest push.

Changemakers: How have changeshops helped you achieve your mission?

Cutts: Changeshops has been really helpful in connecting with other people that I could be working with—Katherine Lucey is one. We’re working together on a business model where, anytime I do a solar suitcase installation, her organization, Solar Sister, will help women in the area to become solar entrepreneurs. I’ll be training the Solar Sisters in maintenance of our solar systems, while Lucey trains them to promote the idea of solar in the community. That’s one really exciting connection that the changeshop facilitated for me.

Changemakers: What was your motivation for joining the platform?

Cutts: I had submitted an application for Changemakers’ Making More Health grant, and the team sent me an email inviting me to use the beta version of changeshops. It sounded really cool; I’m always looking for ways to connect with people, collaborate, and learn from one another. I think it’s a bad idea for NGOs to do everything by themselves, because there’s no way to operate entirely independently. Changeshops seemed like great way to connect with other individuals and organizations that were doing similar things, to learn from them and exchange information.

Changeshops: Would you share your initial impressions?

Cutts: It was awesome to be able to put up different projects so I wasn’t limited to listing only my organization, because people wouldn’t be able to see the unique way we approach development unless they were looking specifically at the project level. Being able to have multiple changeshops was really helpful to me.

I also loved the opportunity to set goals, to check them off, and share impact reports. If there were ever going to be funders or larger partners that were wanting to vet me personally, or as an organization, I felt it would be really unique for them to see with whom I’m connecting, how I’m fulfilling the needs of others, funding sources in the past, and the types of successes I’ve had.

Changemakers: Speaking of funders, has changeshops shifted your perception of how to seek new investment?

Cutts: Well, I received $500 of funding from Ashoka, and I’m hoping to use it to attain additional funding at a higher amount. But I’m thrilled about the ability to use changeshops as the basis of future grant applications made available by Changemakers—that’s been really helpful to me. I've been working on an entry to the Innovations for Health competition going on right now, and it was great to not have to start from scratch, by using the changeshop to start the application.

It’s not just helpful to have the ability to advertise needs, collaborate and seek funding individually, but the platform’s three features are worth much more since they’re all in one place at the same time—a composite picture most funders would need. It’s the complete package.

Changemakers: What could you, and Safe Mothers, Safe Babies, do with additional funding?

Cutts: With the money to scale-up my projects, I could introduce some neat changes, like putting low-power computers along with solar systems into health centers to improve care and medical education; I could film and digitize women’s groups’ education and reproductive health dramas and share them with computers at antenatal care centers. It would be a wonderful way to use funding to impact more areas of health, and continue building momentum around care, our biggest focal point right now.