An Inspiring TED talk by Zubaida Bai, who has empowered women around the world with a simple purse.

Zubaida Bai is the co-founder of ayzh, an organization founded to provide women around the globe with resources for giving birth in sterile and clean environment. Zubaida founded ayzh in 2009 and a year later launched the clean birth kit that goes by the name “janma,” Sanskrit word for ‘birth’.

It is the only birthing kit that includes all the 6 items recommended by the World Health Organization to prevent infection at birth and is small enough to carry it in purse.

Source: http://www.ayzh.com/

 As per WHO statistics, every day, approximately 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth of which 99% occur in developing country. Even worse, poor hygiene and sanitation during birth is directly linked to the preventable deaths of more than 1 million women and newborns each year.

In the process, she also provides employment to local Indian women to assemble the packages, allowing them to develop a stable income. It costs $3 which is half of what similar kits costs.

Zubeida displaying the purse. 

Since 2010, about 250,000 kits have been sold in India, Afghanistan, Gambia, Laos, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, and Haiti — reaching 500,000 mothers and babies.

Ayzh targets to reach 6 million women over the next five years.

With funding and support from USAID’s and MIT she plans to develop similar kit for newborn too.

Zubeida had a troublesome infection after the birth of her first child in one of the best facilities in India, which made her think about the plight and ordeal of poor village and low resource women during birthing . This incidence catapulted her in whole new world of maternal and child health very different from her engineer background. 

Link to Ayzh Website:http://www.ayzh.com/ 

More information on ‘Janma’ can be accessed here.