Clinique Monique
Location: Mali
Grant Amount: $15,092
Areas of Impact: Health
Mission of Clinique Monique
To support community-based work that promotes health and education, especially for women and children, in the Koutiala region of Mali, West Africa.
Summary
Clinique Monique is a clinic dedicated to the life of Monique Dembele, a midwife from a rural village in Mali. The purpose of the clinic is to conduct prenatal consultations, perform minor surgeries and provide gynecological and obstetrical care At present, the clinic operates in a cramped, rented room. A larger clinic will open in late 2009. The new facility has a maternity ward as well as a health clinic. The clinic can see sick patients and do small surgeries and some dental work, while the maternity ward will provide OB/Gyn services, do well-baby and well-mom visits, and, hopefully, become a place where women can gather to talk. Dining for Women (DFW) donations will purchase obstetric equipment and supplies and fund midwifery training.
Why We Love This
Monique’s life is revealed in Kris Holloway’s respectful, unsentimental, yet inspiring book, Monique and the Mango Rains. Holloway, a young Peace Corps volunteer, worked by Monique’s side for two years birthing babies and caring for mothers, in remote, impoverished villages in Mali. She wrote her book following Monique's untimely death. The book is “a rare tale of friendship that reaches beyond borders to vividly and irrevocably unite another woman’s world with our own.” The genesis of this program, then, is the close, intimate relationship between two women (Monique and Kris) and the love they have for one another. The organization that blossomed from their relationship offers DFW a very personal way to touch women’s lives. The program is pure, with little bureaucracy. When Marsha, the DFW founder, read Monique and the Mango Rains a year and a half ago, their cause resonated with her not only because of her own obstetrical nurse training but also because of her dream of being a nurse midwife.
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