@iLabAfrica at Strathmore University celebrated a significant milestone by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Save the Children International, Kenya. This collaboration is set to leverage @iLabAfrica’s expertise in data analysis and processing to assist Save the Children in comprehensively understanding infant mortality trends based on data collected from over 210 countries.

In his remarks, Mr. Ahmed Osman, Acting Director at Save the Children, highlighted the alignment between @iLabAfrica and Save the Children’s initiatives focused on care and development. This acknowledgment underscored the significance of the MoU signing as a foundation for further collaboration on projects related to digital child protection, education for underprivileged children from the basic level upwards, and reducing child mortality.

While addressing the importance of child protection and advocacy, Mr. Emmanuel Kweyu, Deputy Director of @iLabAfrica, emphasized the critical need to advocate for the girl child. He stated, “When you protect and empower the mother, you in turn protect the child.” Mr. Kweyu highlighted the goal of ensuring every child reaches their 5th birthday and outlined how this collaboration will create opportunities to advance projects that monitor maternal health from the prenatal stages through the postpartum period, as well as the child’s health and development from infancy to primary school.

He also detailed the numerous women-led and child-centered initiatives at @iLabAfrica, such as the Women in Tech project and the Neurodivergent in Tech program. According to the Deputy Director, the partnership is set to foster the development of new projects and enhance existing ones, furthering their mission of improving child and maternal health.

The Memorandum of Understanding establishes a collaborative framework across various areas, including research, gender-transformative approaches, capacity building, water quality monitoring, and digitization of systems, among other future collaboration opportunities. It also provides a platform for @iLabAfrica to offer its expertise in data analysis to understand infant mortality and support related projects.

Mrs. Fiona Oyatsi, Partnership Manager at Strathmore University echoed the sentiments of previous speakers saying,’ Children need to be spoken for and prioritized at a policy level. It pays to invest in children’ This statement perfectly summarised the benefit the partnership will have on future projects.

Article written by: Ajuna Lindah