In the Autumn two of our Maternity Worldwide volunteers, Karen and Jeremy, who had spent a year at our programme in Ethiopia, decided to move to Addis Ababa after enjoying their time spent in the country previously.
As part of their current work they went to Mettu where they were able to meet up with our student midwife Lensa who was on her placement at Mettu Government Hospital at the time to see how she was getting on with the second year of her course. Karen and Jeremy were also able to give Lensa a laptop which had kindly been donated to Maternity Worldwide by a generous supporter.
Karen sent us this update on Lensa;
“Lensa is doing really well and is studying incredibly hard. Her ability to speak English is improving at a rapid rate, which will help her in her exams – as they are all in English. Interestingly, I met a few of her friends and they all had fairly poor English compared to her. Her exam results remain in the ‘As’, which is no surprise as she studies every day. She was doing her 3 week placement at the government hospital in Mettu whilst we were there, which was great as we were working in the fistula hospital in the same grounds. Lensa was able to come into theatre to watch Jeremy repair a fistula and he taught her a bit about that.
Every morning at the hospital, the doctors do a round and the midwifery students all have to answer various questions about the patients and their conditions and treatments. We were testing her on this and she was really well informed about things, Jeremy was impressed with her knowledge.
Lensa was really pleased with her laptop. She is going to be using it to write her essays and also to access the various documents that the teaching staff give her to read (vast amounts!).
She remains committed to returning to the rural area to work once she has completed her training but for now she is enjoying the challenges of learning lots of new things and is eager to do well in her exams.”
We would like to say a huge thank you for everyone who took part in Muffins for Midwives last May, the money raised will pay for the remainder of Lensa’s midwifery course as well as the full 3 year course for Robert in Malawi. If you would like to hold a cake sale, coffee morning or tea party to raise money to sponsor the training of midwives in Africa please click here for your free fundraising pack and more information.
