Amref Health Africa

The Maridi Health Science Institute (MHSI), founded in 1998, was built to help address the extreme gaps in healthcare throughout South Sudan by providing medical training to health workers in remote and underserved communities. This school year, 125 students, 47 fully sponsored by Amref, enrolled in midwifery and clinical medicine courses. Hellen, a 25-year-old midwife student in her final year, told her grandfather she would be a nurse when she grew up. As a resident of South Sudan and Uganda during their conflicts, she saw firsthand what women go through during pregnancy and labor. These experiences taught her that becoming a midwife would help her be a changemaker. On top of being a student, she’s a trainee at one of the largest hospitals in the state. She regularly interacts with patients, talks with them about their care, and conducts follow-up visits at their homes after delivery. This dramatically reduces infections...