PURPOSE:
The purpose of our presentation will be to share the ongoing work Midwifery Exchange in Ghana (MEG) has been doing to support continuing education for midwives in rural Ghana.

DISCUSSION:
MEG is a partnership between U.S. and Ghanaian Midwives whose focus is to reduce the disproportionately high rate of infant and maternal mortality in rural Ghana by focusing on continuing education. MEG has designed a training program to teach the Helping Babies Breathe and obstetrics emergencies curricula to Ghanaian midwives. They have also partnered with GYNZONE, an online learning platform, to provide education about perineal repair. MEG started this initiative by hosting two conferences in Wa, Ghana that we structured to focus on sustainability. We used the traditional train the trainer model and took it one step further by focusing on the development of teaching skills of the Ghanaian trainers. After the conferences, we were able to support the trainers to facilitate education at rural health centers by providing support through a Whatsapp group and by providing a stipend to the trainers. By this method, over 30 additional training sessions were held with the aim of having refreshers every year. In addition we have partnered with GYNZONE and our training champions are helping 100 midwives complete the online perineal repair modules and we are able to provide each one with a stipend to pay for the wireless data they use in order to complete the online education.

EVIDENCE WHERE RELEVANT:
Our presentation will share some of the data we have collected over the course of this project.

KEY MESSAGE:
By providing online support and a stipend to a skilled group of Midwifery Training Champions, MEG has created a continuing education program for rural midwives that is effective and sustainable OF note: MEG plans on sponsoring travel expenses so Cecelia Kakariba can join us to present Poster session 3 (Group B)