Hope & Empowerment for Nurse Nancy

I met labor and delivery nurse Nancy Mwiinga while on a project assessment trip in rural Chikuni Mission, Zambia, with Professionals Without Borders (PWOB), a service group under the auspices of Seattle
University.

PWOB had received a request from Chikuni Hospital for help with the construction of a maternity shelter. The need for this shelter is great.
Expectant mothers living in remote areas served by the hospital are
typically without transportation and have to walk to the hospital to
deliver their babies, a trek of up to 15 miles The hospital cannot
admit them until they are in labor. Due to this hardship, many women
choose to deliver their babies at home, and complications have
resulted in  high infant and maternal mortality rates. The shelter would enable women to stay close to the hospital near the end of their
pregnancies until labor begins, and then be admitted for a hospital
delivery.

Nurse Nancy is a bright 35-year-old with a warm and friendly nature
and a sparkle in her eye. During PWOB's initial meeting with
administrators and staff at Chikuni Hospital, Nancy unexpectedly put me on the spot asking if I would please sing a song of joy and inspiration to start the day! Unaccustomed to performing solos in business
meetings and unable to carry a tune, I threw the challenge back at her. Nancy laughed and burst into a traditional Zambian song in her lovely
voice backed by the rest of the hospital staff.

During our stay in Chikuni, Nancy gave PWOB volunteers a tour of the hospital maternity room and explained how deliveries take place. The
nurses deliver the babies and the hospital's sole doctor, a general
practitioner, will step in if there are complications. Drugs to mitigate
labor pain are not available to women. Nancy loves her work and puts
her patients at ease with her warm bedside manner.

Through conversations with Nancy both in Chikuni and via WhatsApp after I returned to the U.S., I learned about her life. Nancy is a single
mother to seven-year-old daughter, Nicole, and two-year-old son,
Johnson. She escaped an abusive marriage during which she was nearly
strangled to death by her husband in front of their daughter. This event landed Nancy in Chikuni Hospital, her place of employment,  as a
patient. Nancy's parents and the hospital administrator supported her as she sought and was granted a divorce. Her ex-husband provides no
financial support for the children.

A nurse's salary in Chikuni does not pay a living wage, particularly for
one with a family to support. Nurses must often find a second income
stream to make ends meet. Now solely responsible for her two growing children, Nancy struggles to provide for their needs, which include 
school tuition and supplies, and to pay the bills and put food on the
table. The long drought that southern Zambia suffered until only very
recently caused widerspread crop failures and raised the cost of food,
adding to Nancy's struggle.

Intent on doing all that she can to provide for her family, Nancy has
taken a second job teaching nursing students, which she will begin in
January 2020. The nursing school is in the city of Choma, a 93-mile
round trip commute from Chikuni which Nancy must make by bus. She will teach twice a week, returning to Chikuni for her nursing shifts. 

Nancy's caring nature extends beyond her immediate surroundings.
She reaches out to me regularly via WhatsApp, inquiring about my
son's recent surgery, offering advice when I was sick, and even calling
to sing Happy Birthday to me together with her children.

It is my great wish this holiday season to lighten the load that Nancy
shoulders each and every day still keeping a  warm smile on her face
and joy in her heart. My hope is to provide some assistance with her
bills, to provide a bit of financial security in the form of small savings,
and to help Santa find his way to Nicole and Johnson this year. But I
can't do it on my own.

If you are moved to do so, will you help me help Nurse Nancy? Any
amount of support you might offer, no matter how small, would be
greatly appreciated! 

It is my goal to raise $1,500 for Nancy and her family by Christmas.

THANK YOU!