The Peer-to-Peer Mentorship Program: Exchange

I am very delighted to work as a UN volunteer with support from UNFPA and through your excellent leadership management skills in the UNFPA office.

I have gained a lot of knowledge, working experience and skills in delivering healthcare services, and positively contributing to the reduction of maternal/neonatal mortality and morbidity in South Sudan.

Mondi Julius Elikana has been working in Yei Civil Hospital since 2018 as a national National United Nations Volunteer (NUNV) midwife.

TESTIMONIAL

Kindly, I have just arrived from my tour of Canada and visit to my fellow peer Brianna Cavan. It was so amazing and a wonderful visit to Brianna.

She received us very friendly and had taken a lot of conversation and tour around the hospital with us… Thank you for all the support and kindness you have really shown me through UNFPA. I will also show my commitment to UNFPA and my community and my fellow peer group. Brianna thank you for making the day possible and joyful.

– Joseph Angok Deng Atem, Midwife in South Sudan

In June 2017, Joseph Angok Deng Atem travelled to Canada to meet his peer, Briana Cavan, RM, with whom he had been corresponding for over a year. One aspect of the SMS II project brings together midwives from both Canada and South Sudan, for Peer‑to‑Peer training and support.

IN THE MEDIA

Crowded hospitals and mothers in need >>>

A pregnant woman arrived at the Kuajok Hospital in South Sudan in desperate need of a cesarean section. Joseph Deng, a midwife on duty that night, says he knew the situation was urgent. Without the procedure, neither she nor the twins she carried would survive…

Article in Reuters >>>

UNFPA deploys national UNV midwives to help reduce maternal mortality in South Sudan >>>

The Peer-to-Peer exchange has taught me that midwifery passion is universal.

Our souls share the same dreams: Healthy Mothers (Pregnant People) and Healthy Babies.

– Susana Ku, RM in Canada

The documentary Voice Choice Change about midwives in the Peer-to-Peer program was released in 2019. In this 30-minute film, we follow the lives of four, very different, very complex midwives from South Sudan and Canada, as they negotiate a diverse array of personal and professional challenges in an ongoing search for respect in their respective midwifery practices. The documentary has been seen by over 10,000 people world wide and counting.