Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well! It’s Micha, I took my pen again (I love to say that), to give you our latest news.
After a rather quiet summer, it was back to school for our team with the resumption of presentations about our NGO and the KKH (Kinshasa Kimbanguiste Hospital) project with health professionals.

In fact, this year we focused our efforts to raise the awareness of health professionals working in the field of maternal and child health, by attending various specialized conferences in North America. On September 7th, we resumed this campaign with our first presentation of the 2018-2019 academic year for the professionals of the neonatal intensive care unit of the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

This presentation was quite special for us, because the majority of us work in this unit. It was thus with our colleagues at work that we had to share the project. Even though, some of them had heard about the project we are working on, the majority were not really aware of all the details, ins and outs, and in fact, how did we set up this NGO!

It was Dr. Beaumier and I who had the task of presenting the project this time. Maryam and Stephanie were there to encourage us. As usual, Dr. Beaumier was very relaxed in this exercise. For me on the other hand, it was more particular! The majority of my colleagues know only part of my personality; that I am a funny nurse who does not really take herself seriously. So very few people could imagine that I was behind such an initiative! In general, I do not really talk about myself or my aspirations with my co-workers.

Although I like them all a lot, I tend to stay on the surface and not say too much about myself. So, standing there, talking about Chance and how everything started … was actually talking about me for real!!! and sharing my dream of childhood, when I was a little girl, with them. So, I let you imagine my stress! But hey! I convinced myself and put my modesty aside for the good cause. Overall, it went well. The majority were pleasantly surprised. Apart from two or three comments, the feedback was positive and encouraging.

We wrapped up on October 12th with another presentation in Ottawa during the 8th CAPWHN National Conference (Canadian Association of Perinatal Nurses and Women’s Health).

The presentation being in English, it was therefore Maryam who was exclusively in charge of it (My spoken English is a disaster). But, I was there to accompany and support her in this task. To be honest, I loved listening to Maryam talking about Chance and the KKH project. I was even so touched listening to her talking about my childhood dream with her words and passion. I could only be proud and grateful.

I think it was at that moment that I realized how lucky I was to have her by my side on this adventure. Because more than our friendship, we now share a dream together. The strength of a dream is when other people believe it so much that they decide to make it theirs too!

That’s all for the news about our return! Stay tuned; more posts coming soon!
It was Micha with you today!