Supporting Mothers and Families in Somaliland With the Edna Adan Hospital Foundation
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+60%
Funds Raised
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200%
More Donors
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60
Women’s Lives Saved
UNSDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all
“The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. ” – United Nations
The Cause
Somaliland, a democratically-led African state since 1991, is home to a growing population of almost 5 million people.
In addition to several devastating natural disasters, the state faces a challenging maternal mortality rate: 1 in 12 women are currently at risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes, while fewer than 1 in 10 benefit from access to a trained medical professional.
Edna Adan Ismail — a native Somalilander, serving UN diplomat, trained midwife, as well as the nation’s first female Foreign Minister and First Lady — founded the Edna Adan University Hospital (EAUH) to improve the odds for expectant mothers, and to train more midwives nationwide.
Located in the capital city of Hargeisa, and the first facility of its kind in the surrounding area, the EAUH opened its doors in 2002, and has run for 24 hours a day ever since.
Over time, the hospital has grown the capacity to accommodate 69 patients and their families, and has achieved a maternal survival rate 75% higher than the national average. EAUH also provides potentially lifesaving postnatal care, like counseling and vaccines, for both women and their families.
“Most importantly, confidence is built with the family who can then return for advice if they have any issues that worry them about their health and that of the newborn.”
– Edna Adan Ismail, Founder and Director, Edna Adan Hospital and University
In addition to providing these vital services, the University Hospital also serves to train health care providers including midwives nationwide, who will go on to typically support 150-200 births a year, and deliver up to 400 babies. Through this good work, more lives will be saved in Somaliland.
Our Partnership
In order to continue and expand on this successful work, the Edna Adan Hospital Foundation (EAHF) — operating in parallel to the Hospital — works to raise funds for the Hospital and its initiatives in Somaliland.
However when international travel restrictions tied to COVID-19 prevented Founder Edna from making her regular fundraising trips to the United States in support of the Hospital’s vital work, mothers in Somaliland needed a new solution.
In response to this challenge — and in honor of Edna’s 83rd birthday in September 2020 — EAHF decided to run its first ever digital fundraising campaign. The goal was to raise the funds to help sponsor more safe deliveries at EAUH, and to support more midwives.
That summer, the Foundation connected to VidMob Gives to produce two evergreen videos to help promote and support their fundraising campaigns.
The Result
Using existing video footage from a PBS documentary about Edna and her team’s amazing work, VidMob’s creators quickly produced a set of two 30-second long marketing assets, optimized for social media.
Next, the videos were released across the Foundation’s, Hospital’s, and Edna’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages in September 2020. They were also included in an email campaign targeted at donors, timed to coincide with Founder Edna’s birthday, and later repurposed for Giving Tuesday.
“The video is great [and] to the point. We used it again [on] Giving Tuesday.” – Sandeep Bathala, Executive Director, Edna Adan Hospital Foundation
Edna’s birthday campaign was a great success, and helped EAHF to secure 60% more donations than the previous year’s appeal, alongside raising much needed brand awareness for the Foundation and Hospital. In the process, the Foundation also doubled its list of donors honoring Edna’s birthday.
For the resource-constrained team, the new videos will also be an invaluable marketing asset going forward.
Hot off the heels of their successful experience using video to fundraise for the Edna Adan University Hospital, the team now plans to run a new awareness campaign to raise the funds to train the next generation of healthcare professionals in Somaliland.
“We loved the experience…and would not have the capacity to create videos without [this] assistance.”
Sandeep Bathala
Executive Director, Edna Adan Hospital Foundation
The Creator Network
The VidMob Foundation is fueled by the active engagement of incredible freelance creative professionals on the VidMob platform. They’re some of the world’s most talented creators, and, time and again, have willingly dived in to offer their time and skills for charities around the world. No matter the size of the ask, or the significance of the cause, these creators believe in using creativity as a force for good, just as we do.
Joel C.
Editor