Every May or June we visit the practicing matrones (Traditional Birth Attendants) to see how they are doing and distribute the supplies they need to get through the rainy season otherwise known as the malaria season. This is our biggest problem and the only cause of maternal mortality in the last five years. We distribute […]
Fall mission 2025
We have not been able to visit our hardworking matrones since 2023, but the local team keeps the project going. I was able to have a FaceTime call with them in November. We all were crying. I miss them. The reports from 61 matrones revealed only one maternal mortality in 612 deliveries.
Delivering Hope in the Sahara–Ojai Quarterly Article Fall 2025
Dr Bob Skankey commissioned me to create a series of paintings of our experiences in Niger. This was in December of 2024. I finished them and shipped them off in January. In March. Dr. Bob passed away. He has left a hole in my heart and the planet.
Midterm mission to resupply the traditional birth attendants
Every year we visit our matrones (traditional birth attendants) twice. In summer it is to resupply them with meds and mosquito nets for the rainy season when malaria is rampant. In fall it is to collect their annual reports and re-inforce their training. Because of the dangerous political situation we have not been […]
Tamesna borehole–finally
Interrupted as a result of the coup whose leadership froze the movement of the drilling equipment for a time, the work on our well has finally started. Pipes are going from the tank to the clinic and school and a trough for the animals. Nothing is easy in Niger, but we keep plugging away and […]
New Satellite Internet from Rotary
Thanks to a generous grant from Rotary Club of Ojai and Rotary Club of Westlake Village Sunrise we were able to purchase a satellite internet constellation that would enable us to have ZOOM calls with the local staff in Niger and allow our US medical team to communicate with the trainers and trainees in the […]
Retraining in Ingall
The Tamesna matrones delivered a total of 445 babies, with 2 maternal mortalities, 5 infant mortalities, 11 infections, 13 hemorrhages, and 14 cases of malaria.
Retraining in Iferouane
Due to political insecurity, we were forced to postpone our mission with the US team to check up on the matrones practicing in Niger. The Iferouane team is Aghali, Assalama and Fatima. Aghali picks up the matrones from their remote camps, and orders their supplies, and meds from Assalama’s list. Their needs are determined […]
Mosquito nets for the matrones
Every year we check in with the matrones just before the rainy season which usually starts in June. The rainy season is also the season when malaria hits so we want our practicing matrones to be able to protect their pregnant patients. We distribute mosquito nets and fansidar (a medicine used to prevent and to […]
Six more new trainees at Tamesna
A mission led by Alhassane Foungounou and our clinic director (and recent graduate as a midwife) was held at the Tamesna center for nomadic life in February 2024. Rabi trained six new matrones, supplied them with medical kits and certified them. We will try to return in November to see how all of the work […]
Rabi is now a midwife
Rabi was our clinic director at Tamesna when she asked if we would help her get her certification as a midwife, a program of three years. During that time she had a second baby, and completed two missions a year for the Nomad Foundation to train new matrones and resupply the existing ones. She had […]
Training new trainers
We continue to build the capacity of the local staff to expand our traditional birth attendant program whether we can go to Niger or not. We did not go in 2023 because we were saving our money to drill a new borehole at Tamesna, but a coup in July put everything on hold and we […]
A new medicinal garden in Iferouane
We continue to try to create a system that depends less on our presence and our imports. To this end we financed a garden with solar power and tank in Iferouane. In addition to vegetables that Aghali, the garden’s owner will sell, he will produce medicinal plants to supply our matrones. Moringa has been a […]
Thanks to all the donors who saved my family from terrorists
For over ten years under the direction of Charlene Pidgeon and Abdoulaye Diallo our representative in Mali we have been quietly working in war-torn Mali to support the women in a fistula clinic in Mopti and feeding refugees whose lives have been upended by the terrorist violence there. A generous donor has made it possible to […]
New matrone training completed at Ingall
Our most recent training of 8 new traditional birth attendants was completed at Ingal March. Rabi far left is our local nurse who conducted the training and Sidi, center arranged logistics and purchased the their supplies and medical bags. On our last mission we brought a mamabirthie pelvic mannequin donated by Laerdal thanks to our […]
Tamasheq Medical training films now available to all
Thanks to the hard work of John Massey, Mariama Moussa, and your Nomad Foundation crew, Global Health Media has posted four new videos in Tamasheq on their website. Films are a great educational tool for everyone but especially for non-literate learners. We have used them on every mission since 2016 but have been hindered by […]
Our Toyota’s demise
Since 2011 our faithful Toyota pickup has been running around nomad lands delivering meds, trainees, supplies and anything we need to conduct our projects. On Christmas eve, it spontaneously caught fire while on a mission and burned completely. The insurance available in Niger does not cover fire. Needless to say our projects cannot be completed […]
My first trip to Niger by Dr. Jennifer Stevens
Since I was a teenager I dreamed of working in Africa. In 2019 I had an opportunity to speak at a conference in Namibia, but I still longed to do more. When my friends Pat and Becky invited me to work with Nomad Foundation, I was very excited. I have been doing global work in […]
How are we doing? by Dr. Jones and Dr. Stevens
Dr. Rebecca Jones preface: It has been ten years since a wave of maternal mortalities among families associated with the Nomad Foundation inspired the initiation of our traditional birth attendant training program. The goal all along has been to provide basic education and supplies that could reduce the number of young women losing their lives […]
Pat Manzon’s take on Niger mission 2022
This was a special year for all of us heading to Niger for the first time in 3 years. The pandemic managed to keep us at home all that time. In the end, there continued to be training progress despite our absence. We were excited to see what that progress looked like so we could […]
What We’ve Got Here is Success in Communication–by Dr. Becky Jones
Education relies on communication. When working with non-literate people whose native language differs from the teacher’s, quality communication is challenging. In our matrone training project, we have two groups of trainees who speak two entirely different languages – Wodaabe who speak Fulfulde and Tuareg who speak Tamasheq. In school, Nigerien children learn French from a […]
On to Iferouane 2022
Iferouane is almost a two day drive so we spent the night at Moussa’s camp. In the morning the nomads take their animals out to pasture–here are the goats. The training was held at city hall in Iferouane. Here the vice mayor and the doctor at the maternity in Iferouane and the Nomad Foundation team […]
Friendships
One of the most important reasons for gathering all our trainees together is for them to form friendships and share their experiences. It is a wonderful way to learn and was gratifying to see the old friendships renewed and new ones forming. Mariama and Azarra are both Wodaabe women who live very far apart. They […]
Back to work–Tamesna training 2022
Seeing our team in Niger was pretty wonderful after three long years. Rabi, who we are putting through midwife school, takes time off from that to continue running our programs at Tamesna. Our plan was to have our local staff do the training under the supervision of Dr. Becky, Pat and Jennifer. So the first […]
Help from Direct Relief International
Direct Relief International has been helping us with medicines to supply our clinic for almost a decade. This year Dr. Becky hand carried medicines and here she and Jennifer explain their use to our new clinic nurse Rhaichita. These quality medicines along with a warm, respectful welcome to our patients is what has set our […]
New Team Members
Jennifer Stevens, recruited by Dr. Becky and Pat, is a doctor of public health, midwife, and nurse who has worked globally focusing on maternal health and midwifery education. Most recently she has been living in Bangladesh, working with the United Nations – WHO and UNFPA – while she finished her doctorate. She is a very […]
Translation Project
I spent all of my Agadez time working with the remarkable Mariama Moussa, a nurse, who was helping us translate the medical films we use in the traditional birth attendant training program into Tamachek. The trainees will no longer need to have them interpreted from French. Pat Manzon and Dr. Becky discovered these films and […]
Honoring Randy Strong
Since we met in 2005, Randy Strong has been a dedicated supporter of the Nomad Foundation’s work. Past president of the Rotary Club of Westlake Village Sunrise, he has spearheaded a partnership with the Rotary Club of Ojai on dozens of grants benefitting the nomadic population of Niger. His focus since we developed the program […]
Back to Niger 2022
It has been three long years since I have been able to visit Niger. Some of the kids that are going to junior high and High school in Agadez came by to visit me at my hotel. They are growing up so fast. Awalawal left is now taller than I am. Tefeste in blue has […]
Returning to Niger after three years–Mission 2022
Despite pandemic and security concerns preventing us from traveling to Niger since November of 2019, our work training traditional birth attendants continues. Prior to the pandemic, we had prepared several women to become trainers themselves, and they have been able to begin conducting training sessions – a bit sooner than we had anticipated! This training […]
Tamesna training 2022
In June, through the generosity of John Massey, we expanded our reach among the nomadic women to six new trainees at Tamesna. We included two of the previously trained who could help out. Rabi, formerly our nurse at the Tamesna clinic and now the director of our traditional birth attendant program conducted the training. She is […]
Iferouane training 2022
In February we conducted a training of seven new traditional birth attendants in Iferouane. This was accomplished through the generosity of John Massey by local staff. If you would like to support this effort click here.
Malaria prevention
Dr. Bob Skankey, is no longer traveling to Niger but is still a very active board member of the Nomad Foundation. As he has done all his life, he is determined to improve people’s health. He has devised and financed a program to address one of the biggest killers in the region where we work–malaria. […]
Matrone training continued by local staff
We completed two missions: one at Tamesna conducted by Rabi our former medical director and one at Iferouane conducted by Assalama. 14 new traditional birth attendants have been trained and turned in their first annual reports. These reports showed no maternal mortalities in spite of several potentially critical conditions the matrones were able to address […]
Work in Mali
For many years we have worked in Mali to try to make a difference when its people are suffering from the violence of terrorist groups who have taken over much of the country. This work is directed by Charlene Pidgeon and our local representative in Mopti, Abdoulaye Diallo. Here is a letter he recently wrote […]
Friends running for Office
Niger elections are in full swing as we speak. We have among the candidates for regional and national offices–six friends running. Every one of them we have known and worked with for at least ten years. We are very proud that our work together has led to visibility that encouraged them to run. They are […]
Help for Iferouane Students, Artisans, Seamstresses and Matrones
Last year, when we visited the school in Iferouane, Niger where we had helped them repair the roof which had blown off, we found the kids doing their studies kneeling on the ground–they needed desks.
Mission 2020–The work goes on during the pandemic
We are all navigating the major disruptions in our lives that COVID-19 has brought. I hope you are all doing that successfully and in good health. Some of the necessary changes have not been all bad. We have been trying for many years to find a way for our programs to be completed entirely by […]
COVID-19 mission to the nomads
The population of nomads we work with is very isolated, but they must on occasion visit a crowded market to do their shopping. In the hot, dry season which is happening now, Wodaabe women often leave the country, traveling south to Nigeria, Benin, Togo or Ivory Coast, or west to Mali to sell their traditional […]
Our first local training mission in Iferouane
The only way to insure that our matrone training program continues in the long-term is to turn it over to local staff. We have been inching toward this for many years. The biggest step yet was possible when during our last mission we learned that all the essential materials we provide to new trainees […]
