The Hamlin Midwife Alumni Network (HMAN) recently held their first two regional meetings in Metu and Yirgalem, in western Ethiopia, with two more due in the coming months. It has been an excellent chance for the hard working midwives to get together to share best practices and learn from each other, as well as think about their career progression. In addition, to explore the greater impact they want to have through their work and how they might be able to influence others to make this happen.

While disappointing that last year’s HMAN summit in Addis Ababa had to be cancelled because of Covid-19, the silver lining is that the pandemic has jump-started the regions to run the meetings themselves. The midwives have shown great enthusiasm to attend and have really stepped up to successfully run the meetings, with background support from GreenLamp and Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia.

Our local GreenLamp Project Coordinator, Tefera Tesfamichael, is doing a wonderful job on the ground with planning, logistics and manoeuvring local politics to successfully enable the midwives to get together. The meetings are a key part of our “lead” pillar of work which encourages midwives in developing their confidence and capability to lead in their local communities and in the health profession.