No matter where you live in the world, maternal care is a pivotal form of healthcare providing integral support to both mothers and their newborn and young children. In the remote and geographically complex regions of Timor-Leste, however, delivering a high and consistent quality of maternal care is a challenge that requires no shortage of creativity, expertise, and community support. With limited access to healthcare practitioners contributing to heightened risks of maternal and infant mortality, Maluk Timor has spent years working to champion empowerment and the improved health of Timorese women and girls through our dedicated maternal care programs across a number of varying projects.
Transformation doesn’t happen overnight – but every day, our team on the ground and our supporters around the world make a difference in this crucial area of Timor-Leste’s health system. Here’s how we’re hard at work transforming maternal care in these remote communities.
Challenges to maternal care delivery in remote communities
For many Timorese women, the sheer scale of Timor-Leste’s mountains can make or break their access to maternal care. With many communities living within these mountainous regions, the challenges of inadequate road access or long journeys to community healthcare facilities can be overwhelming. This means that many pregnant women either face delays in receiving this crucial maternal care, or they don’t receive it at all.
How we’re transforming maternal care for Timorese women
At Maluk Timor, we work closely with the local government to offer maternal health programs and maternal care throughout the country. Each year, we…
- Care for 150 pregnancies (and counting)
- Educate 400 community members in 15 villages with the knowledge they need to support healthier pregnancies, safer childbirth and informed, positive childcare practices
- Deliver health training to 100 government healthcare professionals, including 90 in child health (encompassing general, rheumatic heart disease and oral health) and 10 in maternal health
Through our targeted program, Community Approaches to Maternal & Newborn Health Equity (CAMNHE) in Rural Timor-Leste, we’re able to support women and children throughout the country through improving maternal and newborn health outcomes. Our strategic combination of community engagement and health system interventions pave the way for a brighter future for Timor-Leste’s residents.
This program includes:
Community Engagement
With Participatory Action Research (PAR), we’re able to work directly with local communities in identifying and solving maternal health challenges. We also provide targeted education that encourages higher rates of facility-based births.
Health System Strengthening
Alongside our targeted community engagement work, direct enhancements to existing health systems are crucial in improving maternal and newborn health rates. Our mobile antenatal and malnutrition clinics see us delivering these key services to remote areas, reaching Timor-Leste women who may otherwise be unable to access healthcare due to their rural location.
Alongside these improvements to direct care access, we’re also hard at work upskilling Timor-Leste’s maternal and newborn healthcare workforce. By equipping on-the-ground medical staff with the education needed to improve maternal health outcomes, we’re able to build long-term improvements into Timor-Leste’s maternal and newborn health systems.
Targeting Timor-Leste’s Maternity Mortality Rates
Reducing Timor-Leste’s Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) is an urgent priority for Maluk Timor and our healthcare partners. While this rate has improved significantly from 750 in 2000 (per 100,000 live births) to 204 in 2020, this is still disproportionately high when compared to Australia’s 3 out of 100,000 live births in 2020. We know that the majority of maternal deaths can be prevented with timely management by a skilled health professional who’s working in a supportive environment. Our training of community healthcare workers is a part of our ongoing strategy to see these rates reduced.
In just the first 12 months of delivering the CAMNHE project, we’ve seen increases in women attending antenatal clinics, an increase in visits themselves that’s over 30%, and improved access to antenatal bloods through our mobile clinics. We have more work ahead of us – but our results speak to significant improvements in maternal and newborn healthcare throughout Timor-Leste.
Partnering to develop Timor-Leste’s maternal healthcare
Alongside our incredible team on the ground in Timor-Leste, our international and domestic partnerships are crucial to our continued work in the development of Timor-Leste’s maternal healthcare quality and accessibility.
We’re grateful for the support of Equity Initiative and Ian Melrose in making the CAMNHE project a reality, making meaningful daily differences for so many Timor-Leste girls and women.
Conclusion
When it comes to developing the maternal healthcare that’s available to women throughout Timor-Leste, every ounce of support makes a significant – and, for many, life-long – difference. Just AUD $380 supports whole-of-pregnancy care for one pregnancy in a remote village. AUD $600 covers the cost of an additional social care worker each month.As we continue to develop our programs and collaborations throughout 2025, we welcome our global community to be a part of changing the lives of Timorese women and their children for the better. It’s the passionate support of our donors and funding partners around the world that enable us to do what we do. We welcome you to join our family (or in Tetun, to join our Maluk!) and discover the power your support can make in supporting Timor-Leste’s future.