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Success in Kassama!
We -- we being Jitta Rogers, Lydia Thomas, and Josephine Fortune, MOMS Certified Trainers -- finished teaching a class in Kassama, which is not far from where we taught in 2015. This was the first time Jitta, Lydia, and Jo taught fully without me or Chris present. Their class had 26 students and eight of them got 100%!! We are so proud of all the new MOMS Community Health Workers and of the Trainers.
Below, you see the group's new leaders.
This is a big deal. We have long aimed at increasing the independence of our Siera Leonean team. Our goals about creating capacity do not just apply to the women we train, but to our own organization, as well. So we see this as a big success!!
Many thanks to the Rural Healthcare Initiative for funding this.
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Next!
Our (Chris McManus and Trish Ross) next trip begins about May 23, and we will return home about July 5. Chris, MOMS Certified Trainers, and I will be very busy in some different venues.
We return to Daru, where we trained in 2009 and visit often. A new, private maternity clinic has opened there, and they want us to train their CHWs! We will include other local people in this class, to strengthen the communities whose MOMS CHWs have died, retired, or moved away.
Further, in a nearby town (Segbwema) is Nixon Hospital, founded by Methodists and now run jointly with the government, and they want us to train in their community as well! We will train a cadre of CHWs for Nixon and for Segbwema, plus we hope to do extra classes for hospital staff.
I think this is exceedingly cool!
Going Back
And while we are making huge progress, our work is development, not relief. If we did relief, we could take some boxes of good stuff and some volunteers to do important work in a clinic for a while. When we hit certain criteria, we'd say we were done. But relief doesn't meet Sierra Leone's real needs.
We develop, where we build capacity so people can take care of themselves when the next crisis hits. This is longer, harder, and un-sexy. We must first build trusting relationships for individuals and communities to make lasting change. And this means we take time and go back.
I told you the story, years ago, about our second trip to Pellie, the first village we worked in. On the first trip there, we did our needs assessment, then returned seven months later to teach a class. As we drove into the village on the return trip, people started running alongside the vehicle, crying and shouting. When we pulled into the clinic compound, the women reached through the windows to try to pull us out. We shouted at Jitta to try to figure out what was happening. Her response? "They are saying, 'You came back.' No one has ever come back before."
That was when the head-knowledge about the importance of relationship slammed us. So, we keep going back, to all the villages. We go back, and they trust us and apply what they learn, and change. We build capacity.
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And a sad need
Jitta conducted a prenatal exam on a client.
This belly, about 32 weeks pregnant, belongs to this girl:
Jitta (who is 4' 10") is standing with the girl on our verandah. She claims to be 19 but is about 11 or 12. She says she is 19, because she is tired of people scolding her for getting pregnant so young. She is an orphan. She doesn't know what to do to care for herself and her baby. And our team sees girls like this all the time.
We seldom show pictures of struggling women as we respect each person's privacy and want to avoid "poverty porn." This girl gave permission to show and tell her story with the great hope that you will help MOMS help her and people like her.
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Gratefulness
So many people are so grateful to you for making MOMS work possible.
We obviously have a lot of work to do. Our successes are significant, and are growing. And the need to reach other areas continues.
We ask your continued support. Please be generous. Please volunteer.
Trish Ross and Chris McManus
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Contacting MOMS…
We want to hear from you.
Just reply to this email, or trish@moms-midwives.org
Mailing address: PO Box 1656, Gualala, CA 95445
Web site: www.MOMS-Midwives.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MOMSMidwives/
Phone: 707-884-3621
MOMS is a 501(c)(3) so gifts can be tax-deductible. Our Employee ID Number, EIN, is 93-1254632.
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