SLL360 Project Organizes Annual Visit and Leadership Meeting
Saving Little Lives 360, an international collaborative project in Hawassa University, conducted annual visit and leadership meeting under the theme "Accelerating Progress toward 2025 Goals: Deep Dive, Alignment and Actions", March 13 - 18, at Halie Resort Hawassa.
Prof. Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Director of NEST360, remarked that their international alliance supports African governments to implement a package of care that includes affordable technologies; training for clinicians and biomedical technicians; and locally owned data to deliver high quality small and sick newborn care. She also pointed out how excited the whole team was to have witnessed very encouraging developments following their project's interventions over the past year and called for more efforts from all stakeholders for a better future.
Dr. Selamawit Mengesha, Head of SRS Health Bureau, expressed a heartfelt gratitude for all involved in the project for their immense contributions towards improving the Ethiopian health system, especially on the prevention and reduction of newborn and child mortality.
During the meeting, Mr. Melese Solomon, Head of Newborn & Child Health Desk at MoH, presented an overview of SSNC in Ethiopia where he clearly showed that the project goals highly aligned with the national goals.
Mr. Abiy Seifu, SLL360 Project Country Lead, also presented the current project status, high-level country goals for second year, and updates on co-investment opportunities.
The aim of this annual program was for the leadership and cross-cutting teams to connect with and support country teams, get a clear understanding of the country team's needs, conduct a deep dive into thematic areas, identify bottlenecks and co-create actionable strategies to achieve the 2025 goals.
The platform, thus, brought together major stakeholders including key contacts at the Ministry of Health (MoH), regional health bureau and others where participants shared, discussed and aligned high-level priorities with the MoH that are critical to achieving goals, and to share progress (interim results) and lessons learned.
The team visited project implementation sites in Sidama region, including the HU CS Referral Hospital's NICU , to gain firsthand understanding of what's happening on the ground and engage with facility staff and facility leadership.
