Empowering Women, Meeting Needs: inspired by my trip to PNG

So It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I have been working on a few things in the background.  And I am so amazed and excited about a little project to bring life to women and girls.

Want to know what it is?…..

While I was in PNG last month…oh wait…over a month ago.. (wow time really does fly!)  I went looking for a project.   I was looking specifically for something that would engage hearts, minds and hands.   I have an amazing friend who is a gifted writer and blogger who has mobilized and inspired hundreds of people with projects like “Bloggers-for-birth-kits”  “Project Baby Billum” and raising money for a Solar Suitcase with “The Sunshine Project”.  You can check out her blog at http://adrielbooker.com/.

With these type of projects in mind, and the fact that I am a part of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), who love to get everyday Mum’s involved in community projects, I realised if could find a need the reality is I really do have the means and networks to do something about it!

So with my heart for mothers and women I asked the midwife, Michelle, who was on our outreach if she had any ideas of what would be of benefit.  Her answer was that “a few of the mums had asked if we had any pads.”   Of course!!  Feminie hygiene is a need that every girl and woman has!

I immediately began researching environmentally friendly washable options and found heaps of designs and patterns.

At this point I enlisted the help of a couple of friends, Adriel being one of them,  to help do a little research for me.  Over the next few weeks I was trialling and making a few different styles and I wasn’t completely happy with what I had and really needed a bit more research done.  Then Adriel came across an organisation called Days for Girls that was the answer to my prayers and an exact fit for what I was trying to do!

Then we discovered that there was a few chapters in Australia and the Queensland chapter for Days for Girls was actually in Townsville!  We’ve met and shared our passion and shared how amazing people are getting behind this project already with donations and materials!

This project has the potential to change lives, distributing the kits also opens up the lines of communication and education around reproductive and sexual health and giving girls and women dignity and opportunity for education and value.  We’ve discovered through the Ship outreaches that there is certainly a need for good education on these topics in PNG.

So on Sunday the 13th of October if you are in Townsville I, along with our local Days for Girls representative, will be hosting a Days for Girls Sewing Bee from 12 – 3pm at the YWAM base on Ingham Rd.  Let me know if you want to come!

If you can’t come but want to join in go to the Days for Girls website and grab the patterns and make some kits!

A Doula in Africa

My trip is not something I can sum up in a few words, but It was definitely just what I needed.

It was so good to be out on the field again.  My soul had been yearning for many years to get back out there.  My heart was happy.

I learnt so much, about myself, my abilities, about women and about my God.

I knew it before, I know it now:

My God values women.  He values the individual.

There were two places where we spent our time.  We spent most of our time at a busy district hospital and then a couple of days at the nearest YWAM base which also runs a clinic with full maternity services, amongst other things.   I think I’ll have to write about that in another post.

My main experience was at the hospital.

It’s really important to put the experience in context.  We volunteered at a busy public hospital where they admit somewhere between 1500 and 3000 pregnant women per month, (that’s about 40 – 90 births a day).  The limited resources they had were stretched to the max.  But they had a system that seemed to mostly cope with the demand.  (Although it did feel a bit like a production line).

The staff there face stark realities day in and day out, that I get to leave behind.  Every day there are still births, obstructed labours,  perhaps a breech birth and numerous other situations that are full on.  They do the best they can with what they have and what they know.

(Part of my team’s objectives is to mentor better birth practices around the world).

One of my main questions was:  Can my skills as a doula make a difference in this environment?  Are doula’s needed?

The overwhelming answer to that question is YES.                                                               Who else is there who has the time to support a mum through this most defining, possibly quite fearful, powerful and exhausting process?  The staff are busy, it’s too crowded for family members to come in.  – In this environment, there is no one.  Yet.

So let me share with you a few defining moments for me personally.

The first day I was at the hospital and the very first birth I observed, was a still birth.  I nearly fainted.   Welcome to birth in Africa.   Any pretence I may have had in the back of my mind about joyously supporting women as they bring healthy babies into the world were crushed.  This is a battle for life and death… some of those battles had been won and lost long before I joined the scene.

After that first birth, I went outside, cried and asked myself  “how do I respond to that?” I collected myself and knew I needed to engage.  Before I left for the trip, God gave me a verse from Hebrews 10:38 & 39.  Don’t shrink back.   I needed to get involved to not just observe and to not shrink back.  I asked God to make it obvious who I needed to support.  So he did.  I spent the next hour or so with a mum who gave birth to a healthy baby, which I ended up catching! (ok scooping up off the bed because she birthed him so quickly).  She thanked me for supporting her and I knew I had made a difference to at least one mum.

The next day I supported a beautiful mum, Pili, giving her comfort, massage, a hand to hold and just generally being there for her.  She had limited English and I even less Swahili, but eye contact and genuine care is a universal language.   I spent probably about an hour with her before her healthy baby girl was born.  If I ever had any doubt that a doula is needed in an environment like this, the doubts melted away when the nurse told me that Pili had named her daughter after me.   What an honour!

In total I supported 13 mums through their births.  I have grown in confidence and solidified God’s call on my life to value pregnant women and support mothers through childbirth.  I also met some amazing women who also share a passion to bring about lasting change to birth practices around the world.

I don’t know my exact next steps, but I do know that God is pretty deliberate in his planning. He knows the potential of things – even when I have no clue.  He knows my family, our strengths and weaknesses.  And He knows how to string it all together.    Brad and I are looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds!

Xx

Melissa Davies:Missionary Doula