Toyin Saraki takes Empowerment of Midwives to Rural Nigeria‏

The inaugural Global Goodwill Ambassador of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM, an alliance of midwives’ associations from over 100 countries of the world), H. E. Mrs Toyin Saraki has taken empowerment, through skills training, mentoring and incentives, to practicing and student midwives in Kwara, north-central Nigeria.

Mrs Saraki met these midwives, as well as community mobilizers and women leaders, at the Civil Service Clinic, Ilorin. At this meeting, she expressed joy and satisfaction with the quality of the Emergency Obstetrics and Newborn Care (EmONC) skills training which the Wellbeing Foundation Africa and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is implementing across three LGAs of Kwara State, with funding from Johnson and Johnson (JnJ). She also shared complimentary products from Unilever Nigeria, including body lotions, bath soaps and deodorant anti-perspirants. 

Speaking, Mrs Saraki, who is Founder-President of WBFA, said “it brings me great pleasure to see the satisfaction on the faces of you midwives, and I’m sure that the EmONC skills you’ve garnered in this period of time will help save the lives of more mothers and newborns across North-Central Nigeria.”

The midwives applauded the work of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, over the many years, and especially highlighted the inclusion on the EmONC Skills Labs, as part of the EmONC project. The training-of-trainer (ToT) modules of the project will ensure a sustainability of skills transfer, for both in-service and pre-service midwives, as WBFA, LSTM and JnJ work towards a State-wide scale-up of the EmONC project, in the years ahead.