Empowerment
Hope for Our Sisters invests in women. Healing from fistula is only the first step towards re-entering their community. Supporting each woman’s untapped potential to live a purpose-filled life is the next step. Some women with fistula remain at CEML, our partner hospital in Lubango, Angola, up to 2 years while infections heal or they await further surgeries, while some stay for shorter periods of time. No matter their length of stay, Prevention and Empowerment Facilitators conduct weekly training sessions at the hospital. Our sisters are eager to learn marketable skills such as sewing, basket making, and reading and writing so they can share their skills with those at home, build their lives, and contribute to their families and larger communities.
We also fund women’s empowerment through the Sexual Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) Groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo with our partner World Relief and through their Aftercare Program in Angola. One long-term hope is an Advocate/Nursing Education Program.
Through empowerment initiatives, HFOS seeks to elevate the status of our sisters as respected and valued members within their communities.
Stories of Hope
The Votoka (“Rise Up”) team in Angola conducts campaigns that encompass prevention, treatment, and empowerment…Women arrive with hardly any life in their eyes, but after they have gone through the program, they start singing, sharing, and encouraging others.…[Read more]
In Goma, DR Congo, women who suffer from fistula after experiencing sexual violence are offered surgery and then connected with social and economic reintegration support through Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) groups.…[Read more]
From its humble beginnings, the Aftercare program at Central Evangelical Medical Center (CEML) in Lubango, Angola, has grown to empower women waiting for or recovering from fistula surgery with craft skills, gardening lessons, literacy/numeracy education, and teaching in local languages.…[Read more]