AIF New England celebrates 10 years of its Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI) at Gala on March 23

The American India Foundation’s New England chapter will host its annual Gala on March 23, 2019. It will highlight AIF’s Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI), a public-private partnership that reduces maternal and child mortality predominantly in remote rural and tribal areas of India.

MANSI has won the Best Public Health Initiative Award at the India Health & Wellness Summit (IHWS) 2018. The award is in recognition of MANSI’s excellence in providing preventive and curative care for mothers and newborns in remote rural and tribal areas of India. MANSI currently serves over two million people in 3,400 villages, in four Indian states.

Our goal for the next five years is to work with state governments to scale up the reach and impact of MANSI to serve 10 million people in the remotest regions of India.

• In 2009, American India Foundation (AIF) launched its Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI), a pilot program, as a Public Private partnership, in partnership with TATA steel, SEARCH and Indian government in 170 tribal villages in Jharkhand.
• Now operates in 3,389 villages in Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh

• Has trained 3,657 community health workers, served 81,300 pregnant women and treated 65,165 newborns.
• Has substantially reduced neonatal, infant and child mortality by 46%, 39%, and 44% respectively.

Over the past five years, MANSI has had a profound impact in Jharkhand:

• 94% increase in pregnant women receiving medical checkups
• 87% increase in institutional deliveries
• 83% increase in newborns being weighed at birth.

 The gala will feature a fabulous line up of entertainment, including the musical group Natraj and the Berklee Indian Ensemble, the dance ensemble Shahi Taj Bhangra and DJ Neel.

Emcee Sorboni Banerjee is an Emmy Award winning television news reporter and anchor, and author of Hide With Me, a young adult novel from PenguinTeen/Razorbill. She spent a decade on the air in Boston before moving to Tampa as a consumer reporter and anchor where she writes on deadline every day, fueled by caffeine and creativity. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Sorboni spent her childhood reading, writing, drawing and daydreaming stories. She’s the daughter of an Indian physicist who made her a story teller and showed her the world, a mother from Maine who taught her to love books and save the world, and has a little brother who probably will. Sorboni currently lives in Florida with her husband, son and golden doodle.

Natraj blends classical music of India with traditional music from West Africa and contemporary jazz into a unique, infectious jazz conception. Selected as Boston’s Best Jazz Band by the Improper Bostonian and nominated Best World Music Act in the Boston Music Awards, Natraj presents exotic textures, accessible melodies, and rhythmic energy.

Berklee Indian Ensemble has hosted members from 42 countries to date. It provides an inclusive space for musicians from all over the world to study and create music influenced by the rich mosaic that is Indian music today. It has an expansive repertoire including original student compositions.

KML, A.K.A. Neel, has performed from Rome to Montreal to Boston for college parties, fundraisers, wedding events and more. He has performed with nonprofit organizations such as Youth Lead and the YMCA.

Shahi Taj Bhangra works to preserve the culture of Bhangra in the west. They are made up of several veteran dancers with experience on multiple teams, and have performed Bhangra throughout the country.

 About MANSI

Designed to reduce maternal and child mortality in rural, impoverished areas, the Maternal and Newborn Survival  Initiative (MANSI) utilizes a public-private partnership model to provide the resources and support required to empower local communities to care for their mothers and children while improving the local health system. MANSI provides preventative and curative care for both mothers and newborns all the way from the individual household to government health facilities to ensure new mothers and infants have the care they need to prepare for, survive, and thrive during and after pregnancy.

MANSI equips villages with a trained community health worker (Sahiya) to provide home-based care, strengthening individual and family knowledge to promote positive health behaviors while building capacity for whole communities. Timely referrals and emergency care during pregnancy ensure that mothers get qualified care when they most need it. AIF is instituting a system for sustainability at all levels for the community and local Health Ministry to uphold over the long term.

About AIF

The American India Foundation is committed to catalyzing social and economic change in India, and building a lasting bridge between the United States and India through high-impact interventions in education, livelihoods, public health, and leadership development. Working closely with local communities, AIF partners with NGOs to develop and test innovative solutions and with governments to create and scale sustainable impact. AIF’s programming seeks to achieve gender equity through developing inclusive models that focus on and empower girls and women. Founded in 2001 at the initiative of President Bill Clinton following a suggestion from Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, AIF has impacted the lives of 4.6 million of India’s poor. AIF is transforming lives across 24 states of India while addressing these issues on a regional, country, and international scale. Learn more at www.AIF.org

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