Save the Children has been providing primary health care and nutrition services in Mahama refugee camp since 2016. In the beginning, the initial services were limited to emergency outpatient consultations, nutrition screening services, and referrals to the Kirehe District Hospital (27 km away from Mahama camp). In 2022, the health centre was fully medicalised to provide refugees with a more advanced primary health service package, such as comprehensive obstetrical and neonatal care, including provision of emergency Caesarean sections (C-sections) and blood transfusion for mothers requiring emergency care.
Based on SC’s outstanding capability in health service delivery in emergency and development settings, the service provision has expanded to additional camps and transition centres for refugees and asylum seekers as well to local communities in Rwanda.
Our health and nutrition programmes provide context-tailored and quality comprehensive services focusing primarily on pregnant and lactating women, newborn, children under five, as well as adolescents. As part of SC’s commitment to programming excellence, we have a global approach to capturing innovations and best practices, scaling and replicating these in new contexts through the development of Common Approaches (CAs).
SCI works at community, district and national levels, emphasizing access to quality and equitable health in formal and non-formal community-based settings, and strengthening technical and programme capacity for health system and individual staff.
OUR PROGRAMMES
1. Maternal Neonatal Child Health (MNCH) / Reproductive Health (RH)
The reproductive health (RH) interventions aim to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality through ensuring access to safe pregnancy, delivery and postpartum period for both mothers and children.
Mahama II Health Centre has been medicalised with inclusion of comprehensive emergency obstetric care to increase access to Comprehensive Obstetrics and Neonatal care (CEmoNC) for refugees by integrating Caesarian sections and blood transfusion in our services. With medicalisation of health services in Mahama II, Save the Children has successfully integrated the Operation Theatre in Mahama II health facility. Services are delivered 24/7 at facility-level by trained doctors, theatre nurses, anesthetist with the equipment of the operation theatre. This is the first primary health care centre in a refugee set-up in Rwanda to provide this vital service.
In 2025, over 70% of the 669 C-sections (i.e 332 cases) were performed at the Mahama Medicalized Health Center, resulting in only 29.2% referrals to the District Hospital. This shift towards local C-sections suggests a positive trend in managing cases within the health center, improving maternal and neonatal health (MNH) for the Mahama population.
2. Nutrition Component
The Nutrition programming is to reduce nutrition related morbidity. It mainly targets children below 5 years old, pregnant and lactating women. Other key nutrition components implemented by Save the children in Rwanda include:
Micronutrient supplementation
Addressing stunting among refugees linked to livelihoods
Community Nutrition interventions
Vulnerable groups, HIV/AIDS, TB patients, pregnant and lactating women (PLW).
Nutrition education is supported by a robust community outreach component, with a network of Community Health Workers and Volunteers at community level.
3. HIV/AIDS Program
Integrated within the PHC services the interventions are geared towards prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Key activities include:
Prevention/education, condom distribution through peer education
Screening and testing, prevention of mother-to-mother transmission
Treatment: ARV/ART therapy facility based
Adolescents, Sexual & Reproductive Health (ASRH) services include interventions for preventing teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS by increasing access to sexual and reproductive health education, screening for HIV/STIs, and treatment and referral for STIs.
4. Innovation in Health and Nutrition
Promotion of innovative health service financing through Kumwe Hub to reduce healthcare access barriers, improve maternal and child health outcomes, and ease the burden on public health services through public-private partnerships.
Kumwe Hub uses a blended financing model which is a creative way to combine resources from different stakeholders to make healthcare more accessible. By using this approach, Kumwe Hub has leveraged the strengths of each partner while minimizing the financial burden on any single entity. Kumwe Hub has previously piloted one clinic and has to launched 3 additional facilities in 2026 that are operational, including one located in the community outside Mahama refugee camp.