Mother’s Day Comfort Pack Appeal

Will you make a woman feel clean, welcomed and loved?

For a woman arriving at a Hamlin Fistula Hospital who has been suffering alone with devastating childbirth injuries, often for years, a Comfort Pack is the start of her journey to return to health, to connection and community, and to the life she deserves.

This Mother’s Day, will you donate a comfort pack to wrap a woman in comfort and healing?

Every woman arriving at our hospitals receives a comfort pack, which contains utter luxuries for the many women who arrive without shoes, wearing the only stained clothes they own.

A comfort pack is a vital start of a woman’s journey to healing, that will continue with surgery to repair her physical injury and education to rebuild her shattered self-worth.

Lovingly made

Each Comfort Pack contains a Hamlin blanket that has been lovingly made by our amazing team of volunteer knitters based across the UK. When a woman like Abebech, pictured above, throws the blanket over her shoulders, it symbolises the embrace of people who finally see her and care for her.

The pack also includes hygiene items, so a woman can keep herself clean, sometimes for the first time in weeks. Many women arriving at our hospitals live in areas where water is in such short supply they can’t wash often.

By funding a Comfort Pack, you’ll provide a woman with a clean new nightgown and slippers for her stay, and a lovely homecoming dress, so a woman can return to her community looking and feeling like the new person she’s become.

Thanks to people like you, women like Abebech know how it feels to be wrapped in loving care. You help them heal and return home with confidence and pride.

Abebech* was shunned for years…then someone like you wrapped her in this blanket.

“I was afraid to go outside. My neighbours covered their noses when I went out.”

Ababech

Abebech’s painful, obstructed labour went on for five days. With no medical support available during her labour, she finally gave birth to a stillborn baby and was left with an obstetric fistula and leaking urine.

For the next 27 years, Abebech lived in pain and shame. She stayed home rather than risk public humiliation. She felt unclean, unwanted and unloved – until a Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia patient identification officer found her and brought her to Hamlin’s Harar fistula hospital for treatment and care.

When women like Abebech step into one of the six Hamlin fistula hospitals across the country, you can be there to help them heal.

You’ll wrap them up in the love they have been shut out from

When Abebech arrived, she was welcomed with love and care. Here, people did not turn away or look at her with distaste. They spoke with her, touched her gently, and gave her a soft hand-made blanket that was hers to keep. It felt warm and comforting around her. There were other items too, things to help her stay clean.

It was in this community that Abebech first began to heal.

You’ll support them through their life-changing surgery

An operation repaired her injury and while Abebech recovered, she wore the clean night shirt that was in her welcome comfort pack. Abebech learned about hygiene and how to care for herself. She learned how to write her name and use numbers.

As her self-worth grew, she started to plan for a new life.

You’ll help them return home with confidence and pride

Abebech left Hamlin’s Yirgalem Regional Fistula Hospital wearing a homecoming dress, healed, empowered and ready to rebuild her life. Thanks to Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, women like Abebech can rejoin the world with dignity and confidence – even after decades of isolation.

Thanks to supporters like you, they know how it feels to be wrapped in loving care.

“I used to be depressed but now I am so happy and free. I want to raise animals and make a living. I will show people who abandoned me that I can change my life for the better.”

Abebech

The funds raised from our Comfort Pack appeal will be used to support our services to find, treat and care for women with childbirth injuries in Ethiopia.