Mariam Sangare, a 34-year-old from Mali, has already had 13 pregnancies, but only nine of her children have survived. She and her husband can’t afford to send any of their children to school, so after they had their last child, they decided to use family planning to prevent them from having more children. Mariam is among the 31% of married Malian woman who want to either space or limit their births but are unable to do so.
In 2008, PSI received funding from the SALIN initiative, under the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to support the Malian Ministry of Health in their efforts to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate in the country. PSI began expanding its existing family planning program to include promotion and delivery of long-acting reversible contraceptives, such as intrauterine devices and implants, in Bamako’s public health centers.
Once Mariam heard that the public health clinic in her neighborhood was offering long-term methods of family planning for free, she decided to use the implant. With SALIN funding, PSI has been able to reach nearly 5,000 women like Mariam with long-term methods of contraception since 2008.