Growing up in the rural area of Gondar, Ethiopia, Amanuel Tebabal Nega (23 years) remembers his mother narrating about her first pregnancy. At that time, there were not enough midwives in the village. A traditional birth assistant was the only one able to attend Amanuel’s mother during labor. Complications occurred and Amanuael’s mother was in labor for two days which led to the loss of her first infant. Amanuel listened to this tragic story while growing up and he felt the grieve of his mother. That was the pushing factor for him to become a midwife: ‘when I help mothers, I feel like I am helping my own mother in that scenario’.
Today, Amanuel works at the Bahir Dar University where he combines teaching with clinical practice. As a midwife he attends clients on a daily basis, a position that comes with many responsibilities. He is helping women through labor and manages potential complications. The most rewarding in his job is to hand over a healthy newborn to her mother: ‘The best thing in my work is the cry of a newborn, there is no feeling like that’. When mothers thank him for helping them through labor pains, he remembers why he became a midwife: to help mothers, like he would have wanted his own mother to be helped.
The best thing in my work is the cry of a newborn, there is no feeling like that
Female&Family[e]Education
Amanuel was invited by his manager to join the Female&Family[e]Education training. He graduated just a year ago, but he feels that the training has been so advantageous to him: ‘Midwifery is a dynamic and ever changing sector, thus updating knowledge is the basic responsibility for us as healthcare providers’. The clinically oriented content of the training helped him to better diagnose and manage his cases.
LUCY mobile service
Amanuel explains that the training has mutual benefits for both him and his clients: ‘When you study this course you update yourself and at the same time the Lucy mobile service enables patients to receive direct advantages’. Lucy is a free sms service for pregnant women and mothers of newborns which promotes a healthy pregnancy and healthy start for newborns. Amanuel finds the service very useful to inform women about danger signs, their pregnancy status and when to go for the next ANC visit. He smiles and says that he enrolled all of his clients over the last three months to the service. Something his manager is very proud off.
When you study this course you update yourself and at the same time the Lucy mobile service enables patients to receive direct advantages
E-learning combined with workshops
Besides the e-learning, physical workshops are an important part of the Female&Family[e]Education. For Amanuel these workshops gave him the chance to meet other midwives from the area. He discussed difficult content of the modules with his colleagues at work but in the workshops he gained extra knowledge and got into closer contact with the other participants. Amanuel encouraged his colleagues to join the training and showed them the modules of the e-learning behind his laptop.
Amanuel hopes that all the midwives of Ethiopia get the chance to complete the Female&Family[e]Education so not only his mother can be proud of the accomplishments of his son, but many more Ethiopian mothers of midwives will be.
The Female&Family[e]Education training and LUCY mobile service are part of the by Diorapthe funded Health[e]Families project in Ethiopia.