Phylis Nambiro, a Kenyan midwife, recently left for Nigeria’s crisis-affected Borno State for her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) where she will work as a nurse and midwife for six months.
She is very excited to do work outside Kenya that seeks to save more lives.
“It has always been my dream to go out into the world to help save lives where the need for healthcare services is great and situation is dire.
We all want to push ourselves sometimes to do more meaningful things in life that will contribute to the good of others,” says Phylis.
In Nigeria, Phylis working with a team of five in Maiduguri will be responsible for starting services to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence at an MSF-supported hospital that caters for both the internally displaced people and the host community.
She will also train local staff and give support to expecting mothers before and after they give birth.
She also wants to work with women to ensure they’re better able to seek medical and professional help following sexual violence instead of continued suffering in silence.
Phylis joined MSF in 2012, working in Kenya and South Sudan.
She feels her experience during her work with another international NGO at the height of the Ebola epidemic during 2014/15 in Freetown in Sierra Leone, really prepared her for future challenges as a fieldworker.
“It made me feel good to help the patients who were suffering from Ebola. I saw them recovering after fighting for their lives and I realised I wanted to do more to help people in dire need of medical care,” adds Phylis.
Find out more about MSF's work in Nigeria.