HLMT trustee and consultant midwife, Carol McCormick and her colleague, Maureen Raynor from Leicester De Montfort University, visited Liberia in January 2020. The purpose of the visit was to build relationship with partners, establish procedures for the recruitment of trainee midwives who HLMT will support with grants, and gather information about initial midwifery training in Liberia.
Supported by Abdul-rahman Bah, they met the Liberian Minister of Health, Dr Wilhelmina Jallah, the Directress of the Esther Bacon School of Nursing and Midwifery, Willimai Weetol-Geninyan, the President of the Liberia Midwife Association, Wilhelmina Flomo, the Director of the Liberia Board for Nursing and Midwifery, Mary Tiah, John Harris and others at the Ministry of Health, and the British Ambassador David Belgrove.
They also visited several hospitals and clinics where Helen Loewenstein had worked, and met a number of people who had known, worked with or befriended Helen.
The visit was extremely useful and very successful. The upshot is that it looks very likely that the first student to receive a grant from the Helen Loewenstein Memorial Trust will be recruited at the end of the current school year in June, and will start training in September this year at the Esther Bacon School.
Some details are still to be finalised, further work will be done with colleagues in Liberia and the HLMT trustees will meet in February to make decisions and to progress the work that Carol and Maureen have done so brilliantly with Abdul’s wonderful support. This is great news.
