Why this newsletter, and why now
This is our first newsletter — and we begin it with intention. For more than a decade, Society for Family Health Rwanda has worked quietly alongside the Ministry of Health, communities and partners to bring primary health care closer to the people who need it most. This edition is where we begin telling that story in our own voice: not only what we have achieved, but the evidence behind it and the vision pulling us forward.
Our work is anchored in a clear mission — to optimize primary health care through evidence-based, technology-driven solutions, fostering innovation and strategic partnerships for lasting impact — and guided by our CARIng values: Client-centred, Accountability, Results-focused and Innovation.
"We are proving something powerful: that dignity in healthcare and economic resilience can rise together. As health outcomes improve, our facilities are creating jobs and generating revenue — turning care into a foundation for stronger, more self-reliant communities."
One model, three horizons
Every health post we build is local by design and global by consequence — aligned with Rwanda's national plans and the world's shared goals.
Putting essential care within a 25-minute walk for every community — directly serving Rwanda's HSSP V, the National Strategy for Transformation (NST2) and Vision 2050, in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
Our nurse-led, PPCP-based, technology-enabled second-generation health post is the model we are scaling. Already running in Rwanda and South Sudan, it is preparing to expand to the Central African Republic, Liberia and beyond — carrying proven tools like Guardian™ with it. The vision: 1,000 health posts in Rwanda and 100,000 across Africa.
Advancing Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals — good health (3), but also no poverty (1), gender equality (5), decent work (8), reduced inequalities (10) and partnerships (17) — by strengthening all six WHO health-system building blocks.
The first baby born at Ngenda
Emerita Dusabeyezu, 45 and a mother of six, remembers when illness meant a three-hour walk through steep hills to the nearest health centre — and the constant fear, during pregnancy, of giving birth by the roadside. In her village of Mayange, some neighbours set out for care and never made it.
That chapter closed in February 2025, when Ngenda Health Post — built by SFH in partnership with the Ministry of Health and with the generous support of Takeda — opened its doors. On its very first evening, Emerita delivered her sixth child, a girl, inside the new facility.
"I was the first patient to give birth at Ngenda Health Post. Now I come for check-ups, bring my children when they are sick, and encourage my friends to do the same."
Emerita Dusabeyezu — mother of six, Mayange, Bugesera DistrictBeyond emergency care, the post offers what was once unimaginable here — antenatal care with ultrasound, dental and optical services, newborn care, and jobs for local people. More than a building, it has become a symbol of dignity: proof that quality care can begin where people actually live, not hours away from it.
What it means, in their words
For years, distance decided who lived. People fell seriously ill at home, and some lost their lives simply because help was too far to reach in time. Today a mother in labour or a child burning with fever is cared for at once — even in the dead of night. That is what it means to bring dignity close to home.
Innocent Rwagatore — village leader, NgendaWhy the model works — and can scale
At the heart of SFH's approach is the Public–Private–Community Partnership (PPCP): nurses own and run health posts as social enterprises, backed by clinical and business training, start-up capital, and Rwanda's national health insurance (Mutuelle de Santé). It is care that is local, accountable, and built to last beyond any single grant.
Independent evaluation backs it up. Second-generation health posts deliver care at just $101 per healthy year of life saved (DALY averted) — about 13% of Rwanda's income per person, ranking among the world's most cost-effective health interventions.
"Running a health post requires more than clinical knowledge — you must manage staff, records and budgets, like any business. But at the end of the day, it's about people. Seeing a mother and baby leave healthy makes it all worth it."
Marie Louise Uwimana — nurse-entrepreneur, Ngenda Health Post
Holding the line on malaria
Malaria remains one of Africa's most urgent public health challenges. The WHO's latest World Malaria Report counts an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths worldwide — Africa carries roughly 94% of that burden, and children under five and pregnant women face the greatest risk. Fighting it sits at the centre of our mission.
Defeating malaria takes more than commodities; it takes leadership. After helping deliver the Science of Defeating Malaria leadership course in Kigali with the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, SFH Rwanda joined our sister organisation SFH Nigeria as implementing partners for its latest edition in Abuja — convened with Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health, the National Malaria Elimination Programme, Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Université Cheikh Anta Diop. From Senegal to Ghana, Rwanda and now Nigeria, the message is clear: Africa's malaria response must be African-led.
Rwanda has become one of the continent's malaria success stories, cutting cases by roughly 85% since 2019 — progress that must be actively protected. Closer to home, our indoor residual spraying campaign in the high-burden Eastern Province exceeded its target this period — protecting 445,739 structures across 43 high-burden sectors, 104.3% of the goal — though incidence stayed above the national average in parts of Bugesera, Ngoma and Kirehe, keeping surveillance-led investment a priority.
The Guardian breakthrough
ED Manasseh Gihana with a community health worker and the SC Johnson Guardian™ spatial repellent
For the first time in roughly 25 years, malaria control has a genuinely new class of tool. The WHO has recommended spatial repellents for malaria prevention and prequalified SC Johnson's Guardian™ — a small device that quietly releases an active ingredient to keep mosquitoes out of a room for a full transmission season. We are proud to be among the partners bringing it to Rwandan communities, working with SC Johnson, which distributes the tool at no profit.
It is a complement, not a replacement: Guardian works alongside the treated nets and indoor spraying families already rely on, reaching the biting hours and spaces those tools can miss — which is what makes it so promising for hard-to-reach communities.
Local roots, where the need is greatest
South Sudan carries one of the heaviest humanitarian burdens in the world. Years of conflict and displacement have left its health system among the most fragile anywhere, and reaching care can still mean a long walk to the nearest facility. It is exactly where a locally rooted response matters most. Since 2021, together with SC Johnson and the Ministry of Health, we have run the Gudele Block 4 Primary Health Care Centre in Juba — providing outpatient, maternal and newborn care, immunisation and laboratory services to a community that had long depended on the overstretched Juba Teaching Hospital. It is part of a wider effort: in June 2025, alongside the Central Equatoria State Ministry of Health, we launched newly renovated health facilities in Munuki, Khor-Romula and Kuda.
This is the same model we have built in Rwanda, shared across borders and owned locally. Every post at the centre — from its lead clinician and midwife to its nurse, laboratory technician and pharmacist — is filled by South Sudanese professionals. To carry the approach faithfully, the centre's lead clinician travelled to Rwanda on a study tour of SFH-managed health posts, learning our Public–Private–Community Partnership model first-hand before returning to lead the team in Juba. The conviction holds wherever we work: the response to a global need is built locally.
What is remarkable here is the welcome — from the moment you arrive, you feel you are in the hands of competent, caring people. And because the costs are low, even those living in poverty can be treated.
Adila Deng — patient, Gudele Block 4 PHCC, JubaFour goals guiding every decision
Our strategic plan turns mission into method — four goals, aligned to national and global priorities.
Quality services within a 25-minute walk for the majority of the population.
Using evidence and insight to sustain healthy behaviours and wellbeing.
Harnessing data for better programmes, decisions and national policy.
Strong governance and partnerships across a multi-country organisation.
The story continues
This is only the first chapter. In our next edition, we follow the model as it travels further — and bring you closer to the people behind the numbers.
A new frontier in the malaria fight — the Malaria Molecular Surveillance platform, tracking drug resistance across sentinel sites nationwide.
The model crosses new borders — first results as we prepare for the Central African Republic and Liberia.
A first look at Koralink, a youth-focused programme connecting digital tools and last-mile access to essential health products.
New voices from the health workers and families who make this work real.
