The Rose of Masisi: MSF Counselor Brings Joy to Expectant Mothers

July 29, 2015 Julianne Guito

Access to quality healthcare is often an obstacle to pregnant women and girls in conflict and remote areas of the world. In an effort to provide quality medical attention to mothers with high-risk pregnancies, MSF created a maternal waiting home known as the Village d’Accueil, or Home Village. Located in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the village gives women the opportunity to stay at the facility under medical supervision until they give birth. Nearly 1/3 of all deliveries last year at the MSF-supported Masisi Hospital were to women staying at the Village d’Accueil, (MSF, 2015).

Agathe Farini Sena, known to expectant mothers as Maman Agathe, helps to run the Village d’Accueil as a counselor. Always dressed in a bright pink blouse so she is easy to identify, Maman Agathe welcomes and monitors the physical and emotional well-being of the 70 or so mothers at the facility as they prepare to give birth. Many of these women, of various ethnic backgrounds, come from war-torn and conflict-ridden regions that have led to stressful pregnancies. Maman Agathe, coming from North Kivu, is no stranger to conflict. And she regards the women as her own children, who she likes to “spend time with…dance with…laugh with… and muck about with.”

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#tomorrowneedsher #womenshealth #DRC

Because Tomorrow Needs Her focuses on some of the impediments to women’s health, exposing injustices that disproportionately affect women and girls around the world.