The Philippines, like most developing countries, is experiencing a crisis in maternity care, and one of the solutions is more trained midwives. Ann Tison is a young high school graduate who is eager to attend Midwifery College in order to be on the midwife staff of Mercy In Action, where she currently volunteers. Please help Ann reach her goal of graduating from the local two-year Midwifery College, while she continues to volunteer as a birth assistant with Mercy In Action in the Philippines.
Women in Olongapo cannot afford to hire a midwife so they often birth at home alone, with dire consequences. Ann cried when asked to describe why she wants to be a midwife; to help other women like her mother who have no money to pay a birth attendant when labor begins. Ann has proven herself worthy of this scholarship by the hundreds of hours she has already volunteered in the Mercy In Action birth center, where she is a quick learner and a compassionate helper to women in labor.
By training Ann as a Licensed Midwife, she will be in a position to help find creative solutions to the shortage of affordable health care options for poor pregnant women. Her goal is to work as a midwife for Mercy In Action, and continue to meet the needs of pregnant and newly delivered women in her area. This will be a solution to the shortage of midwives willing to serve low income women in the Philippines, and will thereby significantly reduce the maternal and newborn death rate.
Ann will become a permanent member of the Mercy In Action staff upon graduation from midwifery school. So far Mercy In Action has provided free deliveries for 12,500 women in the Philippines. We kept statistics showing that Mercy In Action's Birth Centers had excellent results. In the coming years thousands more mothers and babies will benefit from this microproject to award a training scholarship to one dedicated and compassionate young woman, Ann Tison.