Babies without mothers

Quadruplets whose mother died after childbirth — from left, Theo, Willy, Stella and Idda — live at the Berega Orphanage.

Not so long ago, I wrote about the alarming maternal mortality rate in Tanzania.

There are close to 50 million orphans in Africa--notes the New York Times , thanks to unprecedented AIDS, war and pregnancy and childbirth related deaths. In Tanzania, many of the babies abandoned because their mothers died in birth are being looked after in an innovative new orphanage programme in which teenage girls from the children's extended families live with them at the orphanage. The babies are not put up for adoption. Dr. Peter Ngatia, the director of capacity building for Amref, the African Medical and Research Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Nairobi, Kenya said "similar programs for AIDS orphans had worked well in Uganda, looking after the children until age 5 and then sending them back to their families or volunteers in their communities."

Photo credit: Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times