Bereaved mother fights to save newborn lives

Every week CNN International's African Voices highlights Africa's most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera.

(CNN) -- Nigerian Toyin Saraki is one of Africa's most prominent voices in the fight against infant mortality.

The stalwart campaigner has tirelessly devoted herself to making sure that African women and children are given a fair chance in life.

Saraki developed her passion for promoting infant safety after a heartbreaking tragedy some two decades ago.

Pregnant with twins, she had to be rushed into hospital just hours before her wedding was due to take place.

"I begun to hemorrhage and on the eve of my wedding I found myself in hospital in this situation which was beyond my contemplation," says Saraki. "I never even knew things like that happened to people -- I ended up delivering that night and it was a harrowing experience."

Gallery: Toyin Saraki She recalls: "I had my daughter naturally, and then my daughter's twin got stuck and there was this life-changing delay which meant that the next baby came out stillbirth and I had a lot of postpartum bleeding.

"To cut a long story short, in 24 hours I got married, had a child and lost a child."

From this tragedy, the seeds of an idea came about -- Saraki decided to dedicate her efforts to raise awareness about maternal and newborn child survival.

"Initially it wasn't even like a foundation or anything at all, I just wanted to help people," she says.

"So in the hospital where I had my baby I told them that if anybody else comes and can't pay please let me know -- whatever I can do, I will do it."

A lawyer and an accomplished speaker, Saraki founded The Wellbeing Foundation in 2003, a group working to reduce maternal mortality and boost child survival in Nigeria and beyond.

She's also joined forces with White Ribbon Alliance (WRA), a leading organization pushing to make pregnancy and childbirth safe around the world.

Saraki has been appointed by WRA as its national champion for Nigeria, where she has been campaigning for the recruitment of more midwives into the public health system.

But one of her proudest achievements so far has been her contribution to the launch of a public health record book, designed to provide valuable information for pregnant women as well as key demographic data.

"This little book I think is our passport to health, it's our passport to life, it's our passport to survival and it's our passport to having the potential to grab the opportunities that are out there," says Saraki.

"We need to be alive to do that -- we can't just be burying our sisters every day and burying little children," she adds.

According to Saraki, the book, which so far has been adopted by seven states in Nigeria, has helped reduce mortality numbers across the country.

"But really I won't relax until every single pregnant woman has one of these and knows exactly what's supposed to be happening to her when she's pregnant," she says.

As the wife of the governor of Nigeria's Kwara State, and born into privilege, Saraki says she is determined to help people less fortunate than herself.

She's teamed up with Cherie Blair's Africa Justice Foundation to give Masters scholarships to government lawyers aiming to improve legislation standards.

And her latest ambitious project has seen her setting up a think tank for people wanting to share their knowledge of Africa.

Bringing together academics, writers, journalists and photographers, Saraki's "Think Africa Foundation" aims to undertake research on a wide range of issues, including good governance and conflict resolution.

"We don't want to be left behind," says Saraki. "Actually, we want to lead, so I think if we share our knowledge properly and openly I think Africa will have a lot of surprises for the rest of the world,"

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