Our History
About Us
The Foundation for Mother & Child Health UK is a UK registered charity (no. 1117795) dedicated to improving the physical and mental health of mothers and their children.
About Us
FMCH UK is run entirely by volunteer trustees and advisors. We keep our overheads deliberately low — no expensive offices, no costly fundraising campaigns — so that donated funds go directly to the people who need them most.
Our History
FMCH began in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2001, when a small group of international healthcare professionals volunteered to establish a mother-and-child centre for malnourished children, known locally as Yayasan Balita Sehat. From that founding centre, FMCH grew to deliver health, nutrition, education and skills training across Jakarta and beyond — expanding to Bogor and the remote island of West Timor.
In 2006, a former Jakarta volunteer returned to Mumbai and opened a FMCH centre in the Dhobi Ghat area. Since 2011, FMCH India has specialised in tackling malnutrition among young children and pregnant and lactating mothers from economically disadvantaged families, with a focus on the critical first 1,000 days of life.
FMCH UK was established as a registered charity in 2007 to support and unify these efforts and enable work in new geographies. Our trustees bring direct experience of living and working in India, Indonesia, and many other countries.
FMCH has also responded to humanitarian crises: setting up pre-schools in Aceh refugee camps after the 2004 tsunami, providing medical support after the 2009 Sumatra earthquake, and delivering skills and first aid training for refugees in Azerbaijan through UNHCR (2007–2010).
Today
In the UK, FMCH has focused increasingly on maternal mental health. We co-produced Perinatal Positivity — a short animation raising awareness of perinatal mental health — which won the Innovation in Health Visiting Award from the Institute of Health Visiting. In collaboration with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the film has now been translated into 19 languages and is freely available to parents, health professionals and organisations worldwide.
Maternal mental health is gaining growing recognition on the global stage. The UN and WHO are placing increasing emphasis on raising awareness among women in Africa, and FMCH UK is proud to be part of that movement. Perinatal depression affects around 1 in 4 women in low- and middle-income countries1 — a burden significantly higher than in high-income countries — yet only 1 in 10 women diagnosed in these settings receives treatment.1 Since 2024, we have partnered with the International Conference on Maternal Mental Health in Africa, supporting conferences held in Zimbabwe in December 2024 and December 2025. These events have brought together health professionals, policymakers and advocates to address the mental health needs of women during pregnancy and the perinatal period across the continent.
FMCH Indonesia
FMCH Indonesia — locally known as Yayasan Balita Sehat — has been working in Indonesian communities for over 25 years. Operating across urban Jakarta, rural Java, West Sumba and the remote island of West Timor, it addresses malnutrition and poverty through an integrated range of programmes including:
●Health and nutrition education for parents and community health workers
●Pre-school education for children aged 3–5 from vulnerable communities
●Pregnancy and postnatal support for mothers in underprivileged areas
●Income generation and skills training to support mothers's economic independence
●A mobile "Smart Cart" bringing health education to children in poor communities through puppet shows and activities
The BUNDA Programme — Indonesia's first community-based psychosocial support model for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) delivered by trained midwives and community health volunteers. A 2025 study across 17 villages in Southwest Sumba and South Central Timor found that 37% of mothers showed symptoms of trauma, 35% experienced anxiety or depression, and only 6% were classified as having stable mental health.2 Launched in 2025 and expanding in 2026, BUNDA directly addresses these needs at community level.
Indonesia has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world, with 1 in 3 children under five affected. FMCH Indonesia's integrated model addresses the root causes of this crisis at community level.
To learn more about the work of FMCH Indonesia, click here.
FMCH India
FMCH India's vision is a malnutrition-free India. Since its founding in Mumbai's Dhobi Ghat, it has grown into a major public health organisation that has directly impacted over 350,000 children and reached more than 325,000 families across three states. FMCH India works at two levels: within communities, it trains local women as para-nutritionists who use the NuTree app to deliver personalised nutrition and care guidance to around 300 families each; and at scale, it partners with government to strengthen the Anganwadi system — the frontline of India's child nutrition infrastructure — equipping workers with training, technology tools and data systems to direct their efforts more effectively. With over 14 lakh severely malnourished children in India, FMCH India's community-rooted, technology-enabled approach offers a replicable model for tackling this crisis across the country.
To learn more about the work of FMCH India, click here.
References
1 Vora et al. (2023). Prevalence of Perinatal Depression in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2802140
2 FMCH Indonesia (2026). FMCH Indonesia Launches Indonesia's First Pilot of the BUNDA Program to Support the Mental Health of Mothers. https://fmch-indonesia.org/fmch-indonesia-launches-indonesias-first-pilot-of-the-bunda-program-to-support-the-mental-health-of-mothers