Physical Health Philippines Project #54815

Mercy Alumni Monthly Sustainers Fellowship

by Mercy In Action Vineyard, INC

Mercy Alumni Monthly Sustainers Fellowship

Project Report | Jun 10, 2023
Midwives Teaching Midwives

By Vicki Penwell | Executive Director

Families are given good teachings before discharge

Mercy In Action midwives are both educators and medical practitioners. We are always teaching; we teach mothers and their families prenatally and postpartum, and we teach skills to midwives, doctors, nurses, and doulas in the USA and the Philippines. To teach and give away vitally important best-practice understanding, we must constantly be keeping up with new research and learning new skills ourselves. And we must always be looking for sources of inspiration.

This week, one of Mercy In Action's midwife leaders from the Philippines, Nerissa, flew to Bali, Indonesia to represent us at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) convention. Mercy In Action College of Midwifery bought her ticket to this big global event to join midwives coming from 119 countries for a week of learning and fellowship. Under normal conditions, the ICM convention is held every three years, rotating to different countries each triennial, but because of the COVID pandemic, ICM did not meet for six years. We are proud to send Nerissa to represent us at ICM and we expect she will return with new information to teach us.

As midwives, we know the importance of gatherings, especially ones that are global in nature. They are wonderful venues for sharing knowledge and being inspired by our colleagues from every continent. In the Philippines, Mercy In Action midwives regularly invite local providers of birth care to seminars and workshops we are holding, in order to encourage and enrich them with programs like Helping Mothers and Babies Survive. We also offer a fantastic post-graduate Diploma in Midwifery & Maternal/Child Health at a distance that will prepare anyone for serving in low resources areas. Click on the link below for more information:

https://www.mercycollegeofmidwifery.edu/diploma-international-midwifery

Thank you for your support; because of your vision, we continue to prioritize both learning and teaching for our midwives so that we all be prepared to share life-saving and life-changing knowledge with those in need.

Blessings,

Vicki

Mercy Midwives Gather to Learn New Skills in 2023

Permalink

Feb 13, 2023
An Outreach Party!

By Jenny Fox | Project Leader

Oct 24, 2022
Helping Incarcerated Mothers

By Jenny Fox | Project Leader

Nerissa teaching a Maternal/Child Health in prison

Women may find themselves pregnant in any life circumstance...during typhoons, a pandemic, while living in poverty, or even while incarcerated. Mercy in Action midwives are committed to providing maternity care to the families in their communities who are facing all of these challenges.

For the past decade, Mercy midwives have volunteered to go into the women's prison in our region and give prenatal care to the pregnant prisoners. About 10 years ago, Vicki and Rose made arrangements with the prison officials for the women to be able to come to our birth center to deliver, as long as they were experiencing a low-risk pregnancy. We are actively involved in caring for pregnant inmates in both our Olongapo birth center and our Tanauan birth center.

Here's a short video in which Vicki tells a story about the prison outreach: Vicki's prison outreach story

Nerissa, our midwife in Leyte, recently taught a seminar on Maternal/Child Health in the women's prison. She was able to educate women about pregnancy and provide information for keeping children healthy. These women may remember this their whole lives, far beyond their time in jail.

Rina, our Patient Care Liaison, goes into the prison regularly and brings one of our midwives to do checkups if there are currently any pregnant women incarcerated. The kindness and respect Rina and the midwives offer these women stand in stark contrast to the way they are treated by the guards and fellow inmates.

Marlene, our midwife in Olongapo, goes to the regional prison to do checkups whenever there are pregnant women inmates, and our birth center recently had a woman brought by the guards when her labor began. This mother had a gentle, natural birth and was treated with respect and an outpouring of love by our midwives. Her baby had the best start possible to life, and she and the baby will forever have that moment together.

Your generosity enables Mercy in Action midwives to serve the incarcerated women in their communities while they also faithfully provide routine maternity care to families. Thank you!

Blessings,

Jenny

Mercy in Action midwives entering a prison

Mercy midwives visiting the jail

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.