Sebber

It is difficult to tell you how impressed I am with the work that is going on here. Let me tell you about my new friend Sebber.




Sebber grew up in a rural village in Zambia. She is a nurse and a midwife, and is working on a degree in public health. She came to Tete to work in a clinic/birthing center, but was held up for almost two years because of political red tape. She spent those two years establishing the health ministries aspect of the Tete Province Holistic Evangelism Project.

Sebber writes the scripts for the dramas on topics from orphan abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention to the importance of soap. She also goes into the villages educating the people and also treating things like ringworm.

Sad truth: if you want to have your baby in a medical facility, you can come to the village of Khanga, where they have a clinic.








Here Sebber shows the labor and delivery room...



The sink, it should be noted, is only a drain; the clinic has no running water and no electricity apart from a solar panel.

So here is where they sterilize their instruments.









Now, since none of the villagers have cars, these women must come up to 50 km walking or by bicycle, and they must come when they are in labor because they have no way to tell if their time is near. Next to the birthing room is the recovery room where they are allowed to stay for an hour before they go back to their village. an hour. two, if there's no one waiting, but there is very often a line.

Since this is not always practical or even possible, Sebber trains "traditional birth attendants" in each village. She's trained over 300 so far. Here's one from Mameme2...





She gives them birthing kits. When I first heard of the kits, I couldn't imagine that she could train uneducated people to use sophisticated tools and drugs. Do you know what the kit contains? A plastic sheet, so the mother doesn't give birth on the dirt. A knife, so no one hunts for a rusty can to cut the umbilical cord. scissors, so no one uses a stick to cut the perineum. Little stuff like that, and it's remarkable the difference it makes for the health of baby and mother.

Sebber is incredibly well known and well respected in these villages. Everywhere we go, they know her. She is also stunningly beautiful and well-groomed all. the. time. I asked her how she does in the villages, are they intimidated? (because she surely intimidates me!) Is she able to be approachable? She says she had to build her reputation as "down-to-earth" but that is wasn't hard to do. She came from a similar village, and she says the mamas are very very proud of her and what she has become.




(notice the wad of plastic bags she's holding. It's their soccer ball.)


And truthfully, she could be anywhere, doing a million different things, and making a lot more money ... but she chooses to give her life to the people of Mozambique. She stands with them, and works to help them have healthier and more productive lives. And precious babies like this one...






or this one...




or this one...