By Jenny Fox | Project Leader
Happy New Year, Alumni! Your support has been a vital sustaining effort in 2024 and we are grateful.
Mercy in Action Alumni share a common bond of having a passion for maternal and infant health improvement anywhere in the world. Many alumni serve their own communities as midwives who provide respectful care to vulnerable families. Other alumni teach childbirth classes or provide support for birthing families. One opportunity that Mercy in Action provides for alumni (or others!) to stay connected with the heart of our mission is a 10-day trip Learn and Serve trip to the Philippines offered each winter. We have had midwives join us from places like Afghanistan, Haiti, Madagascar, Kenya, and India to experience the Mercy In Action model through this once-a-year special event, as well as many folks from the USA and Canada including our own college students and alumni.
Participants immerse themselves in our proven global model for providing maternal/child health care. In addition to completing Helping Mothers and Babies Survive courses, participants tour Mercy In Action’s sponsored Birth Centers, join our First 1,000 Days outreach home visiting program, and teach life-saving skills to local birth providers.
This on-site and hands-on training focuses on international standards and initiatives as well as simple technology to be implemented or scaled up to prevent and treat problems during pregnancy and childbirth in low-resource areas. We explain how maternity care is impacted by poverty and natural disaster, the role of the midwife in disaster response, and give invaluable instruction in creating a safe birthing area when health care systems cannot meet the needs and pregnant families are living in conditions of deprivation. Life-saving global initiatives are seen up close by accompanying the First 1,000 Days mercy companions on home visits and joining the midwives teaching the International Childbirth Initiative 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful MotherBaby-Family Maternity Care in our implementing sites, which are partially funded by your support!
Our February 2025 Learn and Serve trip is already full so we encourage you to consider planning ahead to join us sometime in the future!
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