Rehabilitation and Reintegration
Beyond the physical healing, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia provides customised rehabilitation and reintegration programmes to empower recovering fistula patients to live with dignity and choices when they return to their communities.
Welcome to Joy Village
Dr Catherine Hamlin AC believed that treating a fistula patient goes beyond surgery and is about treating the whole woman with compassion, respect and loving care. In 2002, Catherine established Desta Mender (‘Joy Village’ in Amharic) rehabilitation and reintegration centre to empower former fistula patients to live with independence and dignity.
Many women have lived in social isolation for months or even years and have suffered emotional and psychological trauma in additional to their physical injuries. Re-entering the community can be daunting and few have an income that allows them to live independently.
Each woman receives a tailored rehabilitation and reintegration program including counselling, literacy and numeracy classes, as well as vocational and life skills training. The Hamlin team supports women to find sustainable employment upon reintegration into their communities. In most cases, this also includes the facilitation of start-up grants to establish their own business, enabling women to generate an income.
New skills for life
Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia's Desta Mender has one goal: to ensure every woman who has survived a childbirth injury regains her self-respect and confidence and becomes an active, valuable member of her community.
When a woman arrives at Desta Mender, she is embraced with a Welcome Ceremony to meet and socialise with other former fistula patients and staff. She is then given a guided tour around the centre and the beautiful, extensive grounds to make her feel at home.
After registration and an initial assessment, she is given a dignity kit and invited to an information session about the training courses she can choose from. These include catering, poultry farming, vegetable farming and backyard nursery management, sewing, pottery, beekeeping, dairy farming, handicrafts, health education, literacy and numeracy, counselling and entrepreneurship.
The Women’s Empowerment Programme
The Women’s Empowerment Program was launched in 2021 to provide more former fistula patients with tailored life skills and vocational training at Desta Mender. Women who need income support are specifically invited to participate in this seven-week residency program which aims to restore their autonomy, confidence and economic independence.
Women are offered a wide range of vocational opportunities, including leadership and communications training as well as small-business guidance. The training is partially funded by Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia’s partner, Wings of Healing (WOH), which also gives seed money to every graduate and provides comprehensive ongoing support to foster self-sufficiency and long-term financial independence.
Each woman is also provided with a mobile phone upon graduation so she can keep in touch with her peers and teachers and share her experiences when she returns home. This pioneering program empowers hundreds of women every year.
Building stronger communities
Increased literacy and numeracy skills
Women can manage household budgets, participate confidently in community and financial decisions and communicate effectively using their mobile phones.
Enhanced vocational and income-generation skills
Combining literacy and numeracy with newly acquired vocational skills helps women build innovative, diverse and sustainable livelihoods.
Emotional wellbeing and support networks
Group counselling improves women’s mental health, reduces loneliness and isolation, and creates strong peer support networks.
Better psychological health and decision-making abilities
Individual counselling helps women overcome challenges, boosts self-esteem and resilience, while also supporting informed life choices.
Improved self-sufficiency through new skills
Follow-up supervision helps women overcome challenges, ensures accountability and supports ongoing development towards self-sufficiency.
Hope and independence: Elfinesh’s story
While at Desta Mender, Elfinesh took classes on business management which gave her the tools she needed to run her own small business. She was given a start-up grant to open her own shop in Begi, south-western Ethiopia. Now, Elfinesh has a stable source of income that allows her to provide for her daughter.
Leaving Hamlin with hope
They are all precious to me. For every patient that comes to us we try to give them all the love, care and expertise that we have to help them to get better and back to a normal life.
- Dr Catherine Hamlin
Find out more about what we do
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