ONE Mom Christine Koh is traveling to Ethiopia with ONE this October. This piece, originally published on Boston Mamas, is part of our ongoing coverage of the trip.
Today was a day of inspiration. We rose at 4am and flew from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar. We then spent many hours traversing bumpy rural roads on a bus. Our first two stops were the Madera Woreda Health Office and Anbesame Health Center, which both benefit fromUSAID funding and have subsequently made great strides in providing maternal and child health, family planning, and nutrition services in rural areas. Our third stop was to the Sene Mariam Women’s Beekeeping Group, a program that is funded by USAID‘s Feed the Future initiative and that was developed to provide training and create jobs for disadvantaged women. I was inspired not only by how impacting USAID’s programs are, but by the courage of the women we met at all three stops.
To back up briefly: last night we met some incredible folks from USAID Ethiopia. They were smart, passionate, dedicated, and pretty much made me want to go for a third career in foreign service. Did you know that US foreign aid totals less than 1% of the US budget? In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small amount on the US side, but if that amount is cut from the budget, it has huge global ramifications. All I’m asking is for you to hold this nugget of awareness with you, share it with friends when relevant, and consider lending your voice to lobby for this continued support in the future.
Meanwhile, let me tell you about the women we met:
Ethiopia’s women (and children) are suffering. Despite significant improvements in the past 20 years, they still struggle with comparatively high maternal and child mortality rates as well as malnutrition. Access to health services — whether due to transportation, money, or distance — is the major barrier and this is where the women come in. Among the programs USAID and the Ethiopian government have implemented are satellite health centers + health extension workers. In the example we saw today, the Madera Woreda Health Office is the health care hub (e.g., a large one-story facility with multiple treatment rooms) and the Anbesame Health Center is one of the satellites (two small connected rooms). Women are trained to become health extension workers so that they can become educated, earn wages, and also provide basic yet essential care (e.g., prenatal check ins, nutritional education, family planning education) to those who otherwise would not be able to make the journey to the health care hub.
We met three health extension workers and a group of moms and their babies at the Anbesame Health Center. The surroundings were modest and the health extension workers humble, but they were clearly making a huge impact. Yes, all the stats showed improvement (literally, they were written on large sheets of paper hung on the wall), but the living proof was right in front of us: moms were cradling or nursing their babies, siblings were happily running the grounds. These boys loved giving high fives:
Like the health extension workers, these women were humble and quiet…somewhat serious, as you can see from the photo above. But then I experienced such an awesome moment, completely accidentally, right at the end of the visit. Two of the women were wearing their babies. I was standing behind one of the women during some photos and saw one foot poking out and took this picture:
+ + + + +
Sign up to become a ONE Mom (it just takes a second!) and follow along on the blog and also on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
