In Dakoro, in the Maradi region, Souley Dangoringo Ousmane rarely spends a day in the same place: at a health center in the morning, in a village in the afternoon, and the next day in a meeting with community health workers. His field is the community.
Since June 2022, he has been working with ALIMA-BEFEN on community-based health approaches. In practice, this means being present where everything begins: even before a child reaches a health center.
“If we wait for mothers and children to come on their own, it is already too late.”
To address this, he organizes training sessions for mothers with community health workers. Not in formal rooms, but where they live. He shows them how to use the MUAC bracelet, a color-coded band used to measure a child’s mid-upper arm circumference and quickly assess their nutritional status; how to recognize warning signs of malnutrition; and, above all, what to do next.
But what strikes him the most today is not only what he teaches. It is what he witnesses.
“Before, we had to go and find the children. Today, mothers come to us.”
He speaks of this shift with a certain pride. In the health centers he supports, teams are seeing children arrive earlier, often before their condition becomes critical.
On the ground, his work also involves vigilance. Together with community health workers, he monitors children who do not return to health centers, those who stop treatment, and those who could easily fall through the cracks. Home visits are organized, sometimes over long distances.
“A child who drops out of treatment is at risk. We cannot afford to let them disappear from the system.”
There are also the simple but important daily conversations: talking with a mother outside her home, addressing her concerns, explaining once more how to measure her child’s arm.
Over time, he has seen things change. Fewer children are arriving at health centers in critical condition. Fewer are being hospitalized. But for him, the most important change lies elsewhere.
“Today, mothers are no longer just accompanying their children. They are becoming actors in their care.”
In this region, where distances are great and resources are limited, this role makes all the difference: between the moment a child falls ill and the moment they receive care, time is of the essence. And it is precisely in that window that Souley focuses his work.
“If we act early, we can prevent the worst.”
In Dakoro, this conviction guides his days. And often, it begins with a simple gesture, repeated from home to home: measure, understand, act.
