A ’light-hearted conversation over coffee’ resulted in an Abergavenny photographer making a life-changing charity trip to Ethiopia with two local midwives.

Hannah Merrett, whose pictures have earned her a clutch of awards, joined a small team travelling to a remote village in the south of the impoverished country in May and she states, ‘I had spoken on many occasions to the midwives about their charity’s work but nothing prepared me for the reality of seeing conditions in rural Ethiopia first hand’.

The midwives are part of the charity, Midwives@Ethiopia who work with local midwives and midwifery tutors in Southern Ethiopia to develop and deliver training packages aimed at improving maternity care.

In Ethiopia there are only a handful of hospitals for the 81 million population and maternal mortality rates are currently around 1 in every 26 women.

Nevill Hall-based Brydon Williams, a community midwife, is one of the six volunteer trustees of Midwives@Ethiopia. She states, ‘The Charity’s work is aimed at improving maternal and child health. Much of the funding has come from the Welsh Government, Hub Cymru as well as from the Sainsbury-backed Headley Charitable Trust.

Hannah adds, ‘Fundraising efforts are on-going and the charity are always glad of help and support with this. The latest project has been to support a health centre in setting standards to improve Women Friendly Services. The aim is to make the work sustainable by sharing skills. Low cost teaching aids are used where possible.

Local knitters keep the charity supplied with knitted items. As an incentive for rural women to use health centres and access skilled health care the charity have been providing basic ‘Postnatal Kits’ comprising baby hat and jumper/babygro, soap and towel.

They also provide low cost ‘Clean Delivery Kits’ to the Health Centre as well as beautiful picture cards; primarily for village health workers to use to convey essential pregnancy and neonatal related health messages to rural communities. A small sample of these items can currently be seen on display in the Abergavenny Castle Museum’.

The charity have been working specifically with one health centre in Ethiopia The centre is situated at the top of a very steep 4km dirt track, and provides care to women during pregnancy and delivery, along with serving the community as an out-patients clinic.

Its location means patients need to walk several kilometres up a steep hill when either seriously ill or in labour, but, says Hannah, ‘This is the reality of many rural communities in Ethiopia. The staff at the centre were absolutely fantastic, but in many ways the odds were stacked against them with a lack of running water, electricity, and other facilities.

‘The charity midwives absolutely stunned me with their skills and knowledge during our time at the health centre. They worked tirelessly to deliver training to develop standards of care. It was incredible to see just how valued the work was by both the staff and local community.’

Anyone interested in hearing more about Midwives@Ethiopia or offering support can contact the charity via Facebook or by the website: www.midwives-ethiopia.org.uk