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Opal Health

Building community health systems that listen and respond.
A main reason why pregnant women and newborns die is simply because they reached care too late.
We support governments to integrate a proven model that reduces preventable mortality.
Opal Health work with Community Health Workers in Ngora District, Uganda to delivery Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) for maternal and newborn health.

Our program in numbers:
21,000
people reached

870
Direct participants in monthly community dialogues

28
monthly community dialogues
Every 7 seconds, a woman or newborn dies from pregnancy complications.

Over 70% of these deaths occur because help arrives too late.
What Opal Health does
We partner with government Community Health Workers to improve careseeking attitudes and behaviors among pregnant and new mothers. We do this by holding community dialogues that identify and solve barriers to care.
We provide both direct delivery and technical assistance to integrate Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) into standard Community Health Worker activities.
Our model: Participatory Learning and Action for Maternal and Newborn Health (PLA-MNH)
PLA-MNH is a cost-effective behavior change methodology recommended by WHO and supported by over 25 years of RCT evidence.
Through monthly meetings guided by Community Health Workers, communities identify common maternal and newborn health problems and implement solutions to implement collectively with locally available resources. This cost-effective method fosters deep local ownership and drives sustainable change.
How PLA works: The action cycle
This community-driven approach has a proven track record. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends PLA as a cost-effective way to significantly reduce maternal and neonatal deaths.
Over 25 years of evidence
48% decrease in maternal deaths
33% decrease in neonatal deaths
Our Team
Matt Beer
Co-founder
Startup founder and former Senior Civil Servant. Experience working in and with Governments to develop and implement policy at a national scale.
Melissa Kaminker
Co-founder
Development practitioner with experience bridging last-mile delivery and policy strategy across multiple emerging markets.
With your support, we can do more
It costs just $8 per month to run health sessions with a whole community.
Every $150 we raise will enable us to reach a new community, bringing together another 25 mothers and supporting a
Get in touch
If you want to speak to us about what we do, please don't hesitate to get in touch
Opal Health was incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship. Opal Health operates through Anti-Entropy, 501(c)(3) non-profit fiscal sponsor (EIN 88-0967420).