Twinning ‘South to South’
‘The Movers and the Shakers!’ Four amazing midwives from Ghana and Sierra Leone are the core of the twinning project running there now. In 2018 and 2019 both countries’ professional organisations will start working together intensively. Because they want to learn lots from each other!
Learning from each other’s strengths
Ghana has the oldest professional organisation of midwives in Africa, the GRMA, established in 1935. More than 80 years of experience pays off in this well organised association. They support and connect midwives in Ghana, and advocates for them. So they can do their best work providing good and respectful care for mother and child.
Ghanean midwives want more; to not only play a role in Ghana, but also in other countries. Enter: Sierra Leone.
The midwives there have plenty of international experience due to their twinning project with Dutch midwives in 2008-2012. Through that project they became coveted guests at international conferences, like in 2011, at the worldwide midwives conference in Durban, South Africa.
The midwives in Sierra Leone now want to build up their professional organisation, SLMA. In 2008, the association was floundering, a direct consequence of the years of civil war Sierra Leone had just been through. At the time, 5 midwives could be found to breathe new life into the association. They in their turn found twenty colleagues to take part.
Naturally, ten years later, they’re still developing it. They want their association to serve midwives as well as possible, and through them mothers and babies.
And since they know how to take this on in Ghana, this closes the circle!
De recente ebola epidemie heeft de beroepsvereniging van verloskundigen in Sierra Leone ernstig verzwakt.
Door twin sisters te worden van Ghana willen zij hun vereniging weer sterk op de kaart zetten.
Om zo méér te kunnen betekenen voor moeders en baby’s.
Twinning ‘South to South’, the practical approach
- 6 Ghanean midwives are coupled one on to a midwife from Sierra Leone.
- Their professional backgrounds are similar, for example hands on midwife, teacher, researcher, policy maker.
- They visit each other at least once a year, as a group or individually.
- They keep in touch as much as they can.
- Together they visit workshops about things like leadership and team building.
- They start their own small projects, with concrete goals, towards making maternal health care in both countries better.
- Both countries have their own project leader, who is a midwife herself. They are the movers.
- The Shakers are the presidents of both professional organisations.
- The project will be running for two years, in 2018 and 2019.
- The goal: to create midwifery leaders, who will continue to improve maternal healthcare even after this project.
How does m4m support this project?
- We make it financially possible for the midwives from Ghana and Sierra Leone to work together intensively for two years.
- We share our knowledge and experience of twinning projects for better results.
- M4m’s project coordinators are always ready to help keep the twinning project up and running.
How you can contribute
Would you like to contribute to this twinning project? You’d make a lot of midwives and mothers happy!
We’ll use your contribution for a meeting place for midwives in Sierra Leone, among other things.
Over m4m
Als goed doel zetten we ons in voor goede en respectvolle geboortezorg wereldwijd.
In onze projecten helpen verloskundigen elkaar om verloskundig leiders te worden. Op basis van respect en wederkerigheid. En zo alle verschil te kunnen maken voor moeders en baby’s.
Momenteel werken wij in Ghana, Sierra Leone, IJsland en Nederland.
Doe je mee?
Heb je hart voor moeders en baby's?
Wil je bijdragen aan een betere wereld?
We verwelkomen je steun!
Doe mee als bedrijf
Contact
Midwives4mothers
Postbus 2001
3500 GA Utrecht
info@midwives4mothers.nl
NL88 ABNA 06 06 603 123
ANBI/RSIN: 82 28 377 66
