I like happy endings to stories. I like to have things come out right in the end. You might think I am pretty naive. That is not real life you say. It is more important and worthwhile, even great writing, to tell it like it is. I can read the newspaper if I want stories about all the bad in the world. It is satisfying to have things work out positively. It gives us hope about life and the possibility of good in the world.
Once a month I participate in the We Are The World Blogfest sharing positive stories about people making a positive impact in the world. Seems like you have to search through the news nowadays to find these stories. One source I have is Gratefulness.org. and their monthly Gratefulness News. In it, I found a post about community health workers in Kenya who bring healthcare access to impoverished and remote areas, “Meet the ‘backpack midwife’ bringing healthcare for all.” Phillips Africa is the company that developed the backpack and is “working with local government, Philips is developing a number of community life centres to support community health workers and midwives equipped with these hi-tech backpacks.”
This story reminds me of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) of the 1930s, founded by Mary Breckinridge a public health nurse and midwife, in the state of Kentucky in the United States. Nurse midwives brought obstetric care to women in Appalachia by horseback, their supplies in saddlebags.
“The nurse-midwife carried all of these materials in her saddlebags because she was usually far from both her outpost center and the small FNS hospital; she had to be prepared for whatever she found. With the help of the equipment in those saddlebags, FNS nurse-midwives lost astoundingly few mothers. FNS was a great success by any measure….Kentucky, the birthplace of American nurse-midwifery, now houses Frontier Nursing University, which has provided graduate education to nurse-midwives (and more recently, nurse practitioners) since 1939. This university combines distance education and clinical work in the student’s own community to educate a significant percentage of American nurse-midwives.”-Midwives on Horseback: Saddlebags and Science
Check out the complete story by Dr. Laura Ettinger from the Smithsonian “Stories from the National Museum of American History.”
History of Frontier Nursing University with some great photos.
Mary Breckinridge
Featured image ‘Crepuscular rays in Golden Gate Park’ by Brocken Inaglory via Wikimedia.org
We Are The World Blogfest #WATWB cohosts for this month are: Shilpa Garg, Dan Antion, Simon Falk, Michelle Wallace , Mary Giese
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 
I like happy endings, too. Thanks for participating in #WATWB !
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Thank you, Dan. 🙂
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It’s hard to find happy stories these days but they’re out there. Love BOTH the images at the beginning of this post!
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There’s so much bad news to write about that it hogs the spotlight. I like the image of the sun breaking through the trees a lot, too. Thank you, Dawn. 🙂
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What a hopeful story – the backpack midwife is indeed a high-tech equipped equivalent of the frontier nurses/midwives. It will be wonderful to see their numbers grow, and ultimately result in many more happy endings.
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These stories demonstrate some very creative and inspiring solutions to providing access to healthcare to women in need. Thank you, Deborah. 🙂
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Thank you for participating in the #WATWB this month!
Great photo of dappled sunlight streaming down through the trees… really lovely!
I love positive stories! No, I’m not naive. It’s a choice.
There is more than enough negativity in the media, so there’s really no need to add to it… 🙂
Writer In Transit
#WATWB April Co-host.
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It is great when we can balance the negative with some positive. Thank you, Michelle. 🙂
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Great story, Deborah! Thanks for helping to spread the love of the Kenyan health care workers and positivity of #WATWB.
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It is good for me to find these inspiring stories to share. Thank you, Mary. 🙂
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