The Warm Heart of Africa

Why we are here —> Our path to Humanitarian Medical

The precious women shown in the picture above have become our inspiration. Several on our team met these women while on a visit to Malawi, Africa during which we conducted training sessions in reproductive health. We aimed at helping young women deal with the challenges of menstruation so that their biologic maturation does not cause them to drop out of school. During this short trip, we learned first-hand the many challenges these women face living in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately, we believe our efforts will expand to serve others, but these will be our first beneficiaries. Humanitarian Medical is being built to help them.

Imagine you are an 8 year old Girl in Rural Africa…

Your name is Precious, you have an older sister Evangeline and a younger brother named Gift. You watch as Evangeline grows older and see that she gets unwanted attention from the village boys and even much older men when she starts to look like a women. One day, Evangeline comes home crying and injured. She does not want to talk about what happened, but later, you learn about what people call rape.

Now, when you walk to school or to go to fetch water, you are afraid the same thing will happen to you. You start to hear that a number of other girls in your village have been raped and that it is more likely once you start to menstruate. Some of the young girls in the village have been forced to marry older men once they had their periods. Now you also are afraid this will happen to you. Unfortunately, even though you are a little girl, you start to menstruate before your ninth birthday. Rape and forced marriage occupy your thoughts all day. You want to stop them, but you can’t get these fears to settle. You even start to worry that Gift’s little friends are a real threat. You remember how much fun it was to play with them when you were younger.

At age 8, your life has gotten scary.

If you are fortunate, you avoid rape and your family continues to fund school, even for you. After all, as the younger female child, you are the last priority, even lower than your little brother. As things become more difficult for your family, they decide you should be married so that you will no longer be the responsibility of your mother and father (Trauma 1 - abandonment). You recognize the man that has agreed to take you as his bride, but he is middle-aged. It scares you to think of being a wife, especially to this man. The wedding happens (Trauma 2 - forced child marriage) and this man expects to have sex with you. You don’t even know what that is, but he forcefully shows you (Trauma 3 - ‘marital rape’). This happens frequently and eventually, you learn you are pregnant. At this young age and growing up under-nourished, you are very small statured and unable to deliver your baby. You experience 7 days of hard labor (Trauma 4 - stillbirth and severe birth injury). As you are recovering from the difficult labor, you find that you are leaking waste from your vagina (trauma 5 - vaginal fistula and urinary incontinence).

Your husband disowns you. You return to the home of your mother and father; even they cannot tolerate the stench of your uncontrolled urine. You wallow in shame as you sit in your own waste in an isolated hut built to keep you away from other villagers. You do not know what to hope for. Some say you should be put outside the village so that the wild animals will end your miserable life. It’s easy for you to think they are right.

Suffering from Bladder or Bowel related fistulas

Two excellent documentaries tell stories of women who have suffered from various forms of vaginal fistulas. This type of injury is our first focus. We are working with partners to help them prevent, treat, and in some cases cure this debilitating, potentially life-threatening condition.

See video link below.