Project Selma

Flowers on Selma's grave

Apologies, all, for the slow progress. We haven’t even been able to cash all your generous cheques yet (but that should change soon).

We’ve come up with a plan for the direction we want to take Project Selma in. Over the next couple of weeks, we should be able to explain it. Thanks for bearing with us.

Debs and Thomas are running the Bupa 10k on Monday for Project Selma. More info here.

Good luck, guys! We’ll be cheering you on at the finish line.

Wow… Project Selma has now had over £8,000 of donations. And we have had pledges to do a triathlon, run a 10k and sail round the world (yes, the world) to raise funds.

Apologies, we haven’t cashed any of your cheques yet. That might take a while. We need to get registered as a charity before we can set up the bank account.

Also, it might take a little while to outline the plan for Project Selma. It will take time to find the right way of helping people. Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is taking time to come to terms with our changed situation and that is the immediate priority.

Thanks to everyone for their incredible support.

• Mama Zeena from Merlin interviewed on BBC Woman’s Hour (from 29:00) to discuss their new report All Mothers Matter.
• Maternity Worldwide is a charity based in Brighton providing maternity care in Ethiopia.

The inspiration for Project Selma came from this remarkable documentary (in Arabic). It tells the story of three kabilas (volunteer traditional midwives). One has delivered over 4000 babies, travelling from mountain village to mountain village on a donkey. They don’t have access to simple pain relief or sterile equipment. Watching it, it seems that a tiny amount of financial support could make a big difference.

A quick web search reveals other avenues: eight hours from Marrakesh, this maternity hospital in Tazarine (in French, pdf) was built for 69,300 Euros.

A recent Economist article, lessons from a frugal innovator, offers inspiration from Indian healthcare: ‘LifeSpring Hospitals, a chain of small maternity hospitals around Hyderabad… offers normal deliveries attended by private doctors for just $40 in its general ward, and Caesarean sections for about $140′. We’d love it if Project Selma was market driven and self-sustaining.

In all, we are slightly daunted by the amount of information to absorb. But we are aided by some great advisers. In particular, it was wonderful to discover that our aunt has written a book on pregnancy and birthing in Africa.

We are in the research stage and we’d love to hear any ideas. If you have any suggestions, or recommendations for reading, please leave a comment below.

On Sunday morning, my wife and I first discussed Project Selma.

On Sunday afternoon, we sent an email.

On Tuesday, we buried our daughter.

Today, Wednesday, we counted over £5,000 in donations. What unbelievable days. And scary… now, we really have to create something that matches the dream.

We are not sure exactly how Project Selma will work. The next weeks we will focus on research, talking to people who know more than us. We will keep you updated, on these pages, as Project Selma takes shape.