Coming Up!
OCTOBER: Trish Ross, MOMS’ Education Director and Secretary, will join a group at the First United Methodist Church of Modesto on October 5. The meeting will begin at 10:00 am, and Trish will have some textiles to show and stories to share.
NOVEMBER: Learn what it is like to be a Sierra Leonean woman! Does that sound a little intense? Well, how about participating the In Her Shoes campaign from Circle of Health International? You can eat like Jeneba, a real Sierra Leonean woman and/or donate $60 which can feed a woman like Jeneba for a month or more. Click here for more information or navigate to MOMS’ Work/Sierra Leone page via the menus. And here is a link to COHI’s web page for this: https://inhershoes.greatfeats.com/team/live-as-jeneba-in-sierra-leone
SEPTEMBER: We had a wonderful time meeting with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Sierra Leone Class IV. RPCV are pretty great people, overall, and we had a great time with them in Denver. We talked about the beauty and the challenges of this incredible country. We are grateful to Doug and the rest for their warm welcome.
The next trips to Sierra Leone
Our next class will be in Gerihun, Bo District, Sierra Leone in October-November 2017. We’ll prepare about 30 more community health workers and finish the preparation of our student trainers. Please help us make this happen! Thank you!
In the June 2018 trip, we hope to teach in the Kailahun District again. We also hope to start a new cohort of Trainers, to prepare them to teach our Community Health Worker curriculum. We will have an international team of three.
For October 2018, we’ll return to the Bo District, to Tikonko for our Jamboree where we gather all the women. We celebrate and study at these events. The women love them. We will also train a new group of community health workers and continue training trainers. We have not finalized the team yet. .
Newsletters
If you want to read more about our trips, you can subscribe to our newsletter, below. We send these out six or seven times a year.
Amazon Wishlist
Many of you like to support us with the specific items we need. And we love getting those packages! We set up a wishlist at Amazon.com for this. If you use AmazonSmile, MOMS also receives about .5% of the purchase price! How cool is that? https://smile.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/23TIOKIM25NM8
What is MOMS?
Briefly, MOMS is a humanitarian, non-profit agency whose mission is to improve maternal and infant health in the poorest areas of the world. MOMS' teams build capacity among the women in the rural areas. We teach the traditional birth attendants (their own choice of term) four things:
- To be the bridge between the community and the clinic system
- To make changes to solve women's health problems
- To provide evidence-based maternity care
- To teach their neighbors about women’s health needs, sanitation, and nutrition
For more information, see the MOMS Mission pages.
Volunteers!
We love our volunteers. If you are interested in being a Board member or going on a teaching trip, see our Volunteer! page.
- Buffy Price has made three trips with MOMS, and is looking forward to more! She is an invaluable team member, with a great sense of humor and a gentle and crisp teaching style.
- Cherilyn Porter will make her first trip with MOMS in Spring or Summer of 2018. That trip will be special: The first time a grandmother-granddaughter team will work together. And this is not just nepotism: Cheri has a MS and has solid experience in teaching at several levels.
You can help!
If you want to work with us, see Volunteer! on this website. If you are not able to travel to Africa, remember that we need help with social media, fundraising, grant-writing, secretarial work, research, etc.
You can send MOMS a check, to PO Box 1656, Gualala, CA 95445. Or you can donate electronically. Just click this button:
Our Accomplishments - with your support!
Since 2006, MOMS’ teams have made 18 trips to Sierra Leone, ranging from two to 13 weeks per trip.
- Initial Training: 318 women in eight cohorts
- Continuing Education: 225 women have taken over a dozen classes
- Helping Babies Breathe: 28 people; eight clinics supported
- Essential Care for Every Baby: 6 people; one clinic supported
- Gardening businesses established: five groups
- Palm oil business established: eight groups
- Clinic built, supplied, and staffed
- Leadership Council established, and working to solve problems
- Three new local trainers in preparation to work independently
- MOMS Community Health Workers included in the District Medical Health Team
- Maternal or fetal mortality related to MOMS CHW errors: 0
We have also made two trips to Uganda to teach at Kitojo Integrated Development Association.