Looking Back-- A year later!

A year after our trip to Ganta, Liberia, it is important to look back and reflect on the experience and progress. We are also keeping our friends and colleges in our thoughts as Liberia works through the recent Ebola outbreak.

We are in contact with our coordinator as well as several of our trainees and we have a few more pictures to share! Feedback has been consistently positive and there is enthusiasm for another training in the near future. We were trying to work with Peace Corps volunteers in the area but unfortunately they were evacuated a few weeks back. Hopefully they will be back in their sites soon when their safety can be assured, and we even talked about making the program available to them to use as secondary projects if they were interested!

With permission, we are sharing the thoughts and photos of one of our wonderful trainees, Mekie. She has this to say about the program's impact.

"That training was so meaningful and on time for both the patients and health workers. And since that workshop, patient's care has been so peaceful and done with more passion than ever."

A big Thank You to everyone who continues to work towards a positive, empowering, and healthy childbirth experience in Liberia and around the world.

“There is a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.”  -Laura Stavoe Harm

Pictures from the First Independent Training!

We were lucky enough to be sent some photos of the first independent training done by three wonderful trainers, Alinda, Henrietta, and Samira, from our month in Liberia.  This section included the first 4 days of the longer training and excluded the training of trainers component and the community dialogue, which allowed the program to be compressed into a single all-day training.  The participants were reportedly very engaged, asking great questions throughout.

It looks like everyone had a good time and we are thrilled to see the enthusiasm to help laboring mothers in the health center keep up momentum. One of the participants reported that she was initially not excited to be asked to attend this training as it was her day off, but she ended up enjoying the experience and realized how important this work really is.  There is even talk of integrating some components of this program into the nursing school curriculum after a nurse held an in-service this past Tuesday to demonstrate some new skills.  Way to go Ganta Hospital!

Sustainability

Yesterday, another group was trained by three of our new trainers.  More details to come but I'm told that there was a lot of enthusiasm and everyone had a good time.

Stay tunes for pictures and updates!

Finishing Up

We're back in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia doing some wrap up work.  We have printed the revised trainee manuals to be sent back to Ganta for the July training, and have been talking with Curamericas Liberia about how, if appropriate, the Compassionate Labor program could be rolled out to other communities.  This is an extremely exciting prospect and we are excited to work with our Liberian partners to support them in any way that we can.

We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to live and work in Liberia this past month, and have enjoyed so much getting to know our participants and community members.  While the impact of a project like this one is very difficult to quantify, we'd like to share some of the participant feedback received from anonymous evaluations.

"The training was educational and useful."

"Knowledge gained will improve my care and even encourage mothers to have hospital/facility delivery."

"I want compassionate labor to continue training in Liberia and in the various counties of Liberia."

We would also like to thank our friends and families for supporting us as we undertook this project, and we are excited to see you all soon!

Second Community Dialogue

Today we finished our very last day of programming with the second community dialogue.  Twenty additional TTMs joined our class for the afternoon.  The discussion was similar in content to last week, and one TTM expressed her desire to "open a new book" of relations between the health workers and the TTMs.  This weekend the final report and preparations will be completed as we look forward to the July training.  Our time in Ganta has flown by, and we are sad to leave so many new friends.  The acting administrator from Ganta United Methodist Hospital, Patrick, came to close out the ceremony with some wise words.  He quoted Theodore Roosevelt, saying that compassionate care can be summed up as, "Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."  He also reiterated the hospital's commitment to continuing this program, something we are very excited about seeing though.  Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make the past few weeks a reality and all the support of our family and friends back home. See you all soon!

Week 2- Part 2

Today we finished up the training of trainers portion for our second group of participants!  Tomorrow we will be meeting with a second group of TTMs to complete the programming.  Again, the pre and post test materials showed a successful week in terms of content, and the evaluations were very positive.  After heading back to Monrovia, we will take all of the feedback and print trainee manuals to be used in July.  We have received the go ahead for the next training to take place under the direction of Anni and Liz, the Curamericas interns.  After that, the program will be completely under the direction of the hospital administration.  This experience has allowed us a chance to learn while working in an area that we both feel very passionately about, and for that and so many other aspects, we are grateful.

Week 2

The second week of the training of trainers portion of our programming is underway!  We have a new group of health professionals and together we are putting the finishing touches on the materials that will be left for more training. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and pre and post test evaluations show that the material was well understood.

As one participant, a certified midwife, told us last Friday: "I feel this has woken something inside me, I want to practice what I have learned to help all laboring women."

We couldn't be happier with the results.  We will be leaving to Monrovia this weekend, and there we will be printing revised trainee manuals for future use in Ganta.  We are looking at organizing a training during July that the wonderful Curamerica's interns, Anni and Liz, would be able to evaluate.  This has been an exciting and informative experience and we can't wait to see what this week has to offer!