Women in the rural countryside of Ethiopia are smart, resourceful and highly creative, yet they rarely get a chance to be educated. Their days are spent fetching water, gathering firewood and tending to the home fires while the men work in the fields. Simply getting food on the table for the family requires incredible stamina and devotion to keeping family nurturing as first priority.
When a woman comes to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital and as her body is healing, she has the opportunity to learn many things: the visual alphabet, reading and writing, simple arithmetic and even nursing procedures. Some women are even hired as nurse aids after completing their education. What better person is there to care for a new patient than a former patient?
Educating a woman from the rural areas builds confidence psychologically for her eventual return to her village. The last time she was there, she was weak and lacked any kind of function whatsoever. She also most likely was ostracized and shunned.
Can you imagine how it must feel when she arrives home months later as not only a physically healed woman, but she can also read and write and alert other women to the signs and devastating effects of obstructed labor?
She may never completely eliminate the stigma of once having fistula, but she is well prepared to deal with this adversity with much more confidence. She also has become a crucial resource in educating other village women when they must seek outside care, rather than remaining at home during difficult labor.
