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 […]
Traditional birth attendant training
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.