Open Arms wins Seattle Human Services Coalition Award

We at Open Arms are thrilled to have received the Seattle Human Services Coalition award for Innovative Program!

The winners were announced today:

18th Annual Human Services Awards

The award recognizes Open Arms for its "response to an existing need in a new way, its ability to build upon an outstanding program model, its creativity in leveraging resources, and its positive program results."

I'm thrilled about this award. Today I had a wonderfully stimulating and energizing conversation with one of our current board members and a potential board member and left that conversation feeling so excited about the work we do at Open Arms, as I often do when I have a chance to step back and really look at Open Arms with fresh eyes. Our programs are innovative - and I'm pleased to see that recognized through this award.

Open Arms is a community-based organization, and all of our programs are deeply committed to working within the cultures and communities we serve - not imposing structure from the outside. Open Arms Programs - our regional birth doula services program and our White Center Early Learning Initiative (WCELI) birth doula and outreach doula programs - show results and are cost-effective.

Our clients - low-income women, refugees, immigrants and others - struggle in many ways, but one of the ways that is most apparent is in the area of health disparities. Issues such as postpartum depression, preterm birth and infant mortality disproportionally affect our clients. By removing barriers to service, increasing awareness and personal advocacy, providing education about pregnancy, birth options, breastfeeding and positive early parenting, and reducing medical interventions and the costs of perinatal care, Open Arms programs are able to fill in the gaps that are left in perinatal care and give families a healthier start - which has a great impact in terms of health care costs, early learning and future success of families.... and that affects us all.

Seattle Woman Magazine Mentions Open Arms

You can read the article here:

The Doula Business
by Cheryl Murfin

Nonprofit provides birth kits to refugee camps and sub-Saharan Africa

I just received news (thanks Audrey!) about this interesting new nonprofit World Birth Aid. I thought Open Arms blog readers might be interested.

Their opening sentence on their website says so much:

All it takes to save two lives is a clean pad, soap, razor blade, a length of string and a set of illustrated instructions.

I think that is amazing - that these items are so absent that a woman has to birth without them. We take so much for granted.

Here's an email from Yvonne Røskeland, one of the World Birth Aid team:

Hello my friends,

Good Spring to you all. As many of you know I have had an interesting year. Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to work as a midwife this past year, which has provided me with a wonderful opportunity to spend time with my two year old son Lukas. I hope to introduce you soon to those he has yet to meet. The time I have had away from work has also allowed me to reflect on my personal and professional life.

I spent formative years of my youth in Africa with my family and shortly after receiving my midwifery education I spent two months in Afghanistan delivering babies in a devastatingly dire environment. These experiences have helped encourage me to create a non-profit organization to aid pregnant women and newborn babies in desperate circumstances in sub-Saharan Africa. My organization is called World Birth Aid. The goal of World Birth Aid is to provide a simple clean birth kit which consists of soap, a clean pad on which to deliver, clean string to tie the umbilical cord, a clean razor blade to cut the umbilical cord and illustrated instructions on how to carry out a hygienic delivery outside of a hospital environment.

It is a small organization with a simple charter but I know that if we can provide clean birth kits to women who would otherwise be forced to deliver in squalid conditions we will save lives.

I have recently finished our website. If you wish, you can learn more at www.worldbirthaid.org. If you feel inclined, please forward this email to any and all friends as the larger community we can create the more birth kits we can deliver.

Warm wishes to you all,

Yvonne

Quote of the Day

Another quote... I liked this. It made me think of Open Arms for sure!

“Although the popularly desired outcome is ‘Healthy mother, healthy baby,’ I think there is room in that equation for ‘Happy, non-traumatized, empowered and elated mother and baby.’” –Midwifery Today, Winter 2008