Maymuun is from Lower Shabelle, a rural area south of Mogadishu in the Federal Government of Somalia. She is in her final stages of the direct entry midwifery course in the Mogadishu Midwifery Training Institute. When she was born in the rural district, her mother was assisted only by traditional birth attendants who had no formal training.

Maymuun's mother gave birth to seven girls, with the constant ambition for a boy. However at the eighth birth at home, when the long awaited boy was born, Maymuun lost her mother to bleeding, a post-partum haemorrhage which the TBA could not control. Maymuun was 13 years old at the time, and she missed the guidance and love of her mother whilst growing up.

The loss of her mother at this age led to an ambition to help prevent this happening to other families; she decided she wanted to assist mothers during birth. Nearly two years ago, she found a way to achieve this. Mogadishu Midwifery Training Institute, supported by UNFPA, advertised in her area over the radio the opportunity to study midwifery. Having achieved secondary level education, Maymuun was qualified for this and she excelled when she went for interviews. She successfully secured a place in the training, along with four others from her area. Through the training, she has realised that midwifery is not just about birth, but throughout pregnancy, following birth, and reproductive health overall.

There have been challenges along the way, sad cases of maternal deaths much like her mother's. Unfortunately, this is still a normal sight in Somalia, where, currently, a mother dies during childbirth every two hours, 12 deaths every day. But along with these come the cases where Maymuun knows that she's helped to keep mothers alive, fulfilling her dream, and enjoying the beautiful cases of normal birth.

Academically, she has excelled, with an average mark of 90 percent. The Mogadishu Midwifery Training Institute, led by Hawa Abdullahi, guides them through the learning, from basic biology through to managing complex complications in labour. In addition to this, Maymuun has gained skills in promoting the prevention of female genital mutilation being inflicted on the next generation of young girls, almost universal in Somalia, which causes many complications.

For her final student placement, Maymuun will soon return to Lower Shabelle, close to where she grew up, to make contact with local services and practice midwifery in her area, where the need for midwives is critical, and will be life-saving. She also wants to return once she is qualified to help save the lives of mothers and develop midwifery services close to home, as she knows too many mothers who die as a result of no midwives being available in her area.

Challenges will still remain; Lower Shabelle is not yet fully conflict-free, affecting movement of people and supplies. This would affect both the accessibility of the care that she can give, and getting the supplies she needs to be able do her job. Maymuun's qualification as a midwife will not be the end of the journey, but a step towards improving the lives of childbearing women and their families in her own home town.

Story By Emily Denness