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 […]
Dr. Becky’s thoughts on the 2019 mission
One of the most satisfying aspects of our missions is to observe nomadic women helping one another achieve better health and safer pregnancies. Each year their achievements grow along with their confidence and knowledge. In addition, it is always an enormous pleasure to reconnect with our nomad friends and colleagues despite the limitations in direct […]
What it’s like to go on a mission
Besides all the work and projects that you have been reading about in this blog, I thought I’d try to give you an idea of what the travel is like–not the airplane–you all know about that. I can’t really give you (and don’t want to) the bone crunching experience of driving off road through the […]
Handing it over–a beginning
Since the beginning of the Traditional birth attendant program with Dr. Bob Skankey in 2012 we have worked toward the goal of sustainability. We had thought we had a trainer to take over the program in Achicha, a nurse who helped us for four years. But she decided to get married and move to France, […]
Iferouane goats and women’s co-op
Every year for 15 years we have done some kind of project in Iferouane, a community that has proved to be very industrious and very worthy of the things we do. After severe flooding last year we helped rehabilitate potato gardens. Still suffering from the loss of their herds in that flooding, this year we […]
On to Iferouane
We got to Iferouane after and exhausting two day drive–the highlight was stopping at Dabous the magnificent neolithic carving of a giraffe–considered to be one of the best in the world. It is life size! The road was so terrible we arrived to a welcoming committee after sunset–so the planned party was very short and […]
Tamesna Clinic and School
We had been so busy with the matrone program that we have felt the clinic and school need more of our attention…next year I’m going to have the kids paint another mural for the school. Those who painted the last one in 2013 have mostly graduated to junior high. Can’t wait. We did have a […]
Tamesna matrones
Arrival at Tamesna is kind of like coming home. We put up our decorations (wall hangings, paintings by guess who, fairy and solar lights in the trees) and settled in to await the arrival of the matrones in the afternoon. Dr. Becky and Pat packed the pills that the matrones need for their work and […]
Back from an amazing mission
As I always do–I post our news after I have returned from the mission in Niger. (security reasons) I am sitting in the Paris airport for a few hours so I might as well get started. After the same looooonnnnnngggg trip from LA to Agadez that I have done for 25 years I arrived at […]
Peace Prize Nomination
Nominees announced for 2019 Santa Barbara Peace Prize By MITCHELL WHITE, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER August 18, 2019 12:17 AM The United Nations Association of Santa Barbara and Tri Counties has announced the nominees for the 2019 Santa Barbara UNA Peace Prize. The nominees are: Evie Treen, founder of Friends of Woni International that builds wells […]
Presentation at Johns Hopkins
Rebecca Keene Jones, MD. PhD and Patricia Manzon MSN, CNE presented the work of the Nomad Foundation at the 12th Annual Johns Hopkins Women’s Health Research Symposium. Known to us as Dr. Becky and midwife Pat, they have been working hard, running our training program for nomadic traditional birth attendants since 2016. This poster summarizes our […]
Dr Becky’s words from mission 2018
On social media, new mothers can bake bread in their skinny jeans whilst blissfully nursing their newborns, who also sleep through the night. Volunteers on medical missions can miraculously save lives on shoestring budgets staffed by highly skilled, selfless providers in dangerous environments. As a mother and obstetrician on many missions, I see these boast-posts […]
Desert FUN
Iferouane, known as the gateway to the dunes has been a very important community to the Nomad Foundation–we have worked remotely with them for years, but never done a training there. They asked us and we responded–the bright side of driving two exhausting days over rubble and craggy, tire eating rocks is that the return […]
Jewelers get tools and we all get a big party
On Graduation day for the matrones we called together 15 jewelers chosen in advance and distributed 15 sets of jewelry tools generously donated by Toolbox initiative. And then they threw us a party ALL THIS JUST FOR US….WOW!
Potato Gardens
After devastating floods hit Iferouane last summer, destroying homes, gardens and livestock, they asked for help. With a grant from Rotary we were able to help 19 gardeners replant.
