The Ethiopian photographer Maheder Haileselassie’s recent work, Birth, features mothers in labour, delivery and newly born babies taken at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa. “Spending a week in total in the delivery ward, I tried to capture life as it happened, with mother’s moments of loneliness and pain, of being comforted, of their labour, and of joy and happiness,” she told Ethiopia Observer.
She felt it was a privilege to be given access to be part of these private and intimate female experiences-both beautiful & excruciating. Recalling that the rate of child and maternal mortality in Ethiopia is high, Maheder says that she has come to witness all the efforts being put in an attempt to begin to change this reality. The photographs doesn’t necessarily show all the events that takes place in the ward, yet she says she has done her best to capture it to the best of her abilities. Communicating with the people photographed and treading with respect and dignity, is a central part of her practice. The collection of images are indeed testament to that.
Maheder remains prudent not to make generalizations about the professional medical care, as her observations remain brief and limited. Although she saw trainings being provided to to the nurses and medical people to develop their services, she witnessed that there are not sufficient medical professionals in the field. “I would like to continue documenting both the gritty truth and the wonderful efforts that are being done to improve maternal health in order to bring awareness to the issue,” she says.
The exhibition, displayed at the Fendika Cultural Arts Center, honour the first anniversary of the Ethiopian Neonatal Network, established in cooperation between the Ethiopian Pediatric Society and the Vermont Oxford Network, a non-profit collaboration of more than 1200 hospitals working to improve neonatal care around the world. It was fully funded by Dr. Thomas Eusterbrock and was conceived and realized by a cooperation between “Wax and Gold”, a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of care of new-borns in Ethiopia, Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, the artists and the generous support of the Fendika Cultural Arts Center. Dr. Thomas is a friend of the late renowned Ethiopianist, sociological theorist Donald Levine, the author of “Wax and Gold”.
Main Image: Mekedes Terefe, 21 after delivering at the neonatal unit of St. Paul hospital in Addis Ababa. Maheder Haileselassie/Wax and Gold
You could follow Maheder on Instagram here, and see more of her work on her website.
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