The main activity of the ‘Adopt a Midwife’ Foundation is to collect enough money to finance 5 to 10 scholarships each year.
‘Adopt a Midwife’ works with the St. Luke Hospital and College of Nursing in Woliso, Ethiopia. This hospital is located 160 kilometres South-West of the capital Addis Ababa and provides care in a rural area with over 1,5 million inhabitants.
Every year, 30 to 35 students start their 3-year training at St. Luke College. Almost all students depend on a scholarship of €3.000 to complete their education. The ‘Adopt a Midwife’ Foundation sponsors 5 to 10 students each year. The students come from all over Ethiopia and they will return to work in their home region after they complete their education.
Roos Ament, founder of ‘Adopt a Midwife’, is personally involved in the education of the students in Woliso. Every year, she organises a course on Safe Motherhood.
The second activity of the Foundation is to create awareness on the topic of maternal mortality by providing information and presentations on the topic and spreading educational materials.
From 2010 until 2012, the ‘Adopt a Midwife’ Foundation worked in collaboration with the ‘Barbara May Foundation, in order to improve emergency obstetric care in rural areas in the northern part of Ethiopia.
Currently we work in close collaboration with the ‘Bilma Foundation’. This Foundation helps to train midwives in the Southern region of Ethiopia, a very remote area with very little health facilities. ‘Adopt a Midwife’ is currently sponsoring two students through the ‘Bilma Foundation’.
Furthermore, we are part of the worldwide network of the White Ribbon Alliance, an organisation that is also active in the Netherlands to raise awareness on the issue of maternal health.