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!