Technical support provided by the Global Health Access Program (the health branch of Community Partners International), and the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health....."Over the last decade, militarization and the destruction of community infrastructure have escalated in eastern Burma. The government does not provide health care for the displaced population, which is targeted for abuse, with food and health facilities, documents and supplies destroyed. We have a high prevalence of malaria in eastern Burma, which causes low birth weight, and sometimes miscarriage. If not properly cared for, pregnant women suffer high maternal, and high neo-?‐natal death. There is high mortality in children under age five. And there is a lack of family planning services. Before the Mobile Obstetric Maternal Health Workers (MOM) Project, our community-?‐based organizations utilized every opportunity to improve access to maternal and child health care and education for these vulnerable displaced populations. There were many successes, but it was far from enough. We needed to increase health worker capacity, improve access and the referral system, and most of all, to address the shortage in life-?‐saving emergency care. What the MOM Project brought was a focus on mobile health care, a way to address obstetric emergencies and training of local health workers, even in displaced populations. Through the MOM Project, we helped empower individuals and the community. The MOM Project could not get rid of maternal, or neonatal and infant death. But by equipping people and communities with knowledge and skills, it has saved countless lives. Significantly, the MOM Project played a role in fulfilling the basic right to reproductive health and building a human rights-?‐based approach to health in eastern Burma. Health and human rights cannot be separated. People have the right to access health information and essential health services. Families have the right to stay together and organize as a community. A rights-?‐based approach encourages looking at the bigger picture, at integrating health into the broader system of civil society. This is the critical issue — strengthening our civic foundation to save the lives of mothers and children, and build healthy families and communities." - Dr. Cynthia Maung