AYZH: Improving Health and Livelihood of Women Using Business Solutions
“After seeing women giving birth on soiled concrete surfaces, talking with midwives, and seeing the gravity of the situation firsthand, I knew that AYZH’s purpose was incredibly important.”
– Zubaida Bai, CEO and Founder, AYZH
Genesis
Maternal death can occur at any time in pregnancy, but delivery is by far the most crucial both the mother and the baby. Every two minutes, 60 women die giving birth for lack of access to safe birth supplies. Nearly 17% of women die from preventable infections. A majority of such deaths can be prevented if access to sanitary birthing conditions is ensured. Be it a war like situation or a normal peaceful day, a pregnant woman needs access to appropriate medical assistance – skilled medical staff, drugs and equipment – to save her own life and her baby.
High rates of maternal mortality in developing countries indicate a crucial need for innovative interventions for pregnancy and neonatal care. According to Global health experts it is recommended to institutionalize births (as opposed to home births) as a strategy to achieve Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal mortality. There has been a global push among women to deliver in health facilities. Unfortunately, most of the health institutions lack the infrastructure and trained medical professionals to handle increased volume of births. Due to this, unsanitary birthing conditions persist even in hospital settings and infection rates remain high leading to high maternal mortality...........
Capturing Research-based Insights
After her first childbirth Zubaida contracted an infection as the hospital had overlooked to put her on antibiotics after the delivery. She had spent a year recovering from it. During research Zubaida saw a midwife use a sickle to deliver the baby. This was the Aha! Moment for Zubaida who reflected that if she had the best of services and still contracted an infection due to an oversight what would be the misery of this woman for whose delivery there were no protocols followed and the crudest of procedures followed.................
Pricing of the Kit: A Critical Decision
The focus group and observational interviews of women during a field trip revealed that the target beneficiaries (impoverished women) would not be able to afford high price for the birthing kit. Pricing of the birthing kit was thus a crucial decision for AYZH...........
A Humble Start
To begin with, AYZH collaborated with the panchayat of Kuthambakkam, a small village on the outskirts of Chennai and trained three of its women to assemble the birthing kits. This gave birth to JANMA, the first product of AYZH. AYZH selected India on the basis of the management team’s expertise in the region and established connections with local NGOs and SHGs. AYZH entered India through Tamil Nadu, a Southern state with a population of 6 million...............
Establishing a Unique Product through Value Exploration
AYZH has been developing modular products. The $2 clean delivery birth kit – JANMA targeted at hospitals, rural clinics, primary health care centers and midwives to deliver babies was launched in December 2010. AZYH uses its products to match their efforts with education by partnering with local organizations to offer capacity building training to women in the communities they serve...........
Social Value Creation through Strategic Partnerships
Zubaida Bai was selected for the Ashoka Foundation’s Young Champion for Maternal Health fellowship in 2011. This paved way for new avenues for AYZH globally and in India. She met Katherine Hall of the USbased ‘The Birthing Project’, who then took JANMA to Uganda, Ghana and Malawi in Africa. The fellowship not only brought AYZH to light but in 2012 helped it receive funding from undisclosed social impact institutional investors who also serve on AYZH’s advisory board...............
Scalable Access to Target Beneficiaries using a Unique B2B Model
There is not only a great need but ample opportunities within India to impact the lives of impoverished women. AYZH segments its market on the basis of geographic regions, informal occupation, age and maternal status. This segmentation helps in guiding the research and product development and also directs how to position products in specific markets.............
Unique Lending Model: A Big Step towards Sustainability
AYZH is reaching out to Africa via a unique lending model. AYZH provides zero percent interest loans paid in the form of JANMA clean birth kits to entrepreneurs in Ghana and Zambia, who are then able to re-sell the kits. The cost per kit to the entrepreneurs is valued at $4, and they are further re-sold for an affordable $7-$9. The kit has environmental-friendly and culturally appealing materials...............
Challenges Faced
The journey has been really long for Zubaida Bai. Often Zubaida meets investors and other influential individuals who are unaware of the situation faced by women in India and many other countries. Sanitary and sterile conditions are “a given” for people in the west and it is often hard for them to understand the real dangers encountered by majority of women in developing countries...........
Milestones Achieved
Zubaida Bai’s professional experience, coupled with her personal passion for empowering underserved women, led to her being selected as a TED India fellow (2009), Ashoka Maternal Health fellow (2010-2011)20, Echoing Green fellow (2012) and Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2013) . In 2011, Zubaida’s design of the flagship AYZH product JANMA...........
Expansion Plans
AYZH aims to increase its ‘kit style’ product line to deal with new needs of existing clients (for example, newborn care, prevention of postpartum hemorrhage and menstrual hygiene solutions). Their product suite is being developed in tandem with the Safe Birth Checklist Initiative of the World Health Organization; at a time when AYZH is looking forward to increase volumes by penetrating north India and offshore production to spread out its reach overseas..............
Future Outlook and Social Impact
AYZH aims to be the leading global provider of life saving and changing solutions for women. With their for-profit approach and “for women by women” philosophy, AYZH identifies women’s needs, then designs, delivers, and scales affordable technologies like JANMA birth kit to meet those needs, increase income, and improve health. Contacting infections during child birth not only takes a tremendous toll on the health of women but also results in a significant loss of time and disposable income of the family.............
