The journey to Komuge
This was the journey that made all the efforts of the previous years worthwhile.
Finishing the maternity ward, giving Komuge a place where bringing children into the world and caring for mothers is more manageable and safer.
The consultation room, the day-hospital room, the delivery room, the septic tank at the back. The medicines available.
We wanted to create a safe, well-kept, clean place.
Respecting their culture, of course, but also bringing what is needed.
Every time we finish a project we think it will be the last.
It is too tiring, it takes too much mediation, collaboration and (yes, we are in Africa) sweat too. Then I see what we manage to do all together and...
I always think that something is always possible to help this world be more beautiful and more humane.
And above all, that among the many (useless) efforts made in our frantic world, coming here to help them... is the most right and useful effort of all.
When we said we “would finish a maternity ward”, everyone pictured maternity wards as we see them here, with well-kept waiting rooms, posters on the walls and background music. Or the sleepy faces of newborns wrapped in little hats and blankets.
But here in Africa it is not exactly like that.
Completing the Komuge maternity ward
Coming to “finish” a maternity ward means coming to build the walls, the roof, the windows and, this time, the septic tank too. For us it is normal to have plumbing, drinking water, toilet drains, sewers and wastewater collection. Here there is none of this, so a pit for collecting wastewater had to be created.
We did it. Now the Komuge maternity ward can work properly.
At this point we can all imagine newborn babies and happy mothers, all wrapped in their colourful cloths rather than in our woollen hats. We had to finish the maternity ward. In Italy one woman dies every 33,000 births; in Tanzania one woman dies every 33 births.
A message of hope
Every small gesture can become a beacon of hope for those living in the darkness of poverty and neglect. Through our shared commitment, we can offer opportunity, education and dignity to those who need it most. It is a journey that takes courage, but the children's smiles, their gratitude and their potential remind us that every effort is worth it.
