Enable 50 Women in Angola to Generate Income

Hope For Our Sisters, Inc. is happy to provide our next impact report on the project that you have so generously helped fund through GlobalGiving. We began this project in order to support our partners at the CEML Hospital in Lubango, Angola, as they empower women recovering from fistula surgery with craft skills, gardening lessons, literacy/numeracy education, and teaching in local languages. We refer to this program as Aftercare. Many women who have suffered from fistula have been abandoned by their husbands and families, and are unable to return to their villages and pick up life as it was. Left to provide for themselves in a context that is so different from the life they expected, many women are deeply disadvantaged because of their lack of formal education and skills training. 

It has been a busy time for our partners and sisters in Angola! In March, a well-known fistula surgeon traveled to the hospital to assist with surgeries, operating on 20 women in just a week's time. Many women experienced full healing and have recovered and gone home dry. We are so thrilled by this news! Some of these women first came to hear about the surgeries offered at CEML through our Fistula Prevention and Awareness Outreach Team on their travels to different sites and provinces in the area, including Elline, pictured above. Elline was at a refugee camp on the border between Angola and Congo, and this surgery was an incredible opportunity for her to regain some control of, and hope in, her life. 

Sisters like Elline who have fistula and receive or are awaiting treatment at CEML are able to participate in Aftercare. Recent updates on the Aftercare program have been about two of the teachers who are near to our hearts: they have suffered from fistula themselves and are now helping those coming along behind them in this difficult journey. One of the literacy teachers has been celebrating the simple fact that many of these women can now write their names, something they could not do before. She talks to them about how fistula can interrupt the pursuit of one's dreams, but it does not have to. Elisabeth, our sewing teacher, is further proof of that. Elisabeth has had 11 surgeries to repair her fistula to date, but has not lost hope or heart. The team describes her faith as contagious and her spirit an inspiration to all of the women and staff. Recently, a manual sewing machine was purchased for Elisabeth to teach the women with, because many do not have access to electricity when they go home. Therefore, learning skills on an electric sewing machine may not serve them as well for their lives outside of CEML. We are so happy to be able to assist with purchases like these which have a lasting effect on our sisters' abilities to provide for themselves and their loved ones. 

Thank you for helping us to generate hope in Angola! This would not be possible without your thoughtful investment in our Aftercare program. We are so grateful to be able to come alongside our sisters as they learn, grow, and strive to become positive change-agents in their own communities, passing on their new knowledge and changing the perceptions of what women can achieve and overcome. We will continue to send reports every four months, and share photos and individual patient stories as able. Please spread the word to those you know who might be interested in our work, and follow along on our Facebook page (Hope For Our Sisters, Inc.).

Links:

• HFOS Homepage