“I was looking for a fulfilling, out-of-the-ordinary task...a motivating career where I could reach society at large and offer my expertise,” says Catherine Njeri Makumi, one of UNFPA's humanitarian heroes, as we celebrate World Humanitarian Day.
She has found exactly that. In her role as a volunteer midwife working with UNFPA in Juba, South Sudan, she works around the clock to meet the needs of pregnant women, many of them displaced by the country’s ongoing conflict.
Ms. Makumi is one of UNFPA’s many humanitarian heroes – aid workers who place themselves in no small measure of peril to serve the most vulnerable, the most impoverished and the most crisis-affected people in the world.
She describes the most rewarding part of her work as “Being able to walk with a woman through a difficult pregnancy, and seeing the smile on her face and those of her loved ones when she receives her newborn baby in her arms and breastfeeds with a smile.”
Ms. Makumi relates her most memorable moment: “I received a woman who had an obstructed labour for a week in a remote village...sadly, the baby didn’t survive the ordeal. The woman made it to our health facility in poor condition. We immediately gave her strong antibiotics, and her relatives were willing to donate two units of blood quickly, as we expected post-partum haemorrhage. The life of this woman was certainly saved due to the presence of skilled international volunteers, both midwives and doctors, not to forget the reproductive health kits supplied by UNFPA, which contain medical supplies for emergency obstetric care.”
