Our story began
with families
Wandikweza's journey began with a question that the health system had not yet answered:
How do we ensure that the families living furthest from care are reached before it is too late?
OUR JOURNEY
Systems are not built overnight 2014 - 2030
What Wandikweza has built in Dowa, Mangochi, Salima and Mchinji is the product of a decade of listening, building, failing forward and building again. A last-mile health system is grown season by season, household by household, one trust relationship at a time.
Before the first CHW was deployed, before the first clinic arrived, before a single woman was enrolled, there were two years of listening to communities. That is where the system began.
Founder’s Reflection
“Wandikweza was born from a promise: that no family should lose someone because help came too late. We are building the systems, trust and partnerships that make continuous care possible so families are reached before it is too late.”
2014 - 2015
Listening Years
Before founding Wandikweza, our founder spent two years in the villages of Dowa, listening to families, observing their realities, and learning how they made decisions about seeking care during pregnancy, childbirth, and childhood illness.
2016
Year 1
Wandikweza is founded with a clear conviction: preventing maternal and child deaths requires a system designed to reach families before complications arise.
2017 - 2018
Years 2-3
45 Community Health Workers are selected by their communities and begin the work of building the relationships that make care trusted and used.
2019
Year 3
The Mobile Outreach Clinic layer is added, bringing pharmacy, laboratory, antenatal care, postnatal care, nutrition and family planning to community-level clinic points on a published monthly schedule.
2020 - 2021 Years 4–5
Nurses on Bikes deployed to provide proactive household-level maternal assessment for enrolled women.
2022
Year 6
The Wandikweza Health Centre opens in Dowa, providing a permanent facility-level anchor for the referral pathway.
2023
Year 7
Wandikweza's expansion into Mangochi provided the first proof that Proactive Doorstep Care could be successfully replicated in a new geography, cultural context and government system.
2024
Year 8
Systems, protocols and governance structures are strengthened to support replication at scale.
2025
Year 9
Wandikweza expanded into Salima, its third PDC district, while evolving Nurses on Bikes into Midwives on Wheels strengthening government integration and deepening the model's focus on skilled maternal and newborn care.
2026
Year 10
Wandikweza expanded into Mchinji and launched the Maternity Rapid Response System, completing the sixth and final layer of Proactive Doorstep Care.
Six layers. One connected system.