Kemps Kronicles: Closing out the MOMENTUM project

I'm in Uganda again for 2 weeks to close out the RCM's MOMENTUM project (Developing a Model of Mentorship for Ugandan Midwifery).

Opening meeting with our partners UPMA and the Ugandan project evaluation team

MOMENTUM is a twinning project between the RCM and the Uganda Private Midwives Association. However, we've also been working closely with the Ugandan Nurses and Midwives Council, the Ministries of Health and Education, various universities and midwifery training schools and seven clinics or health centres. The project aimed to develop a national standard for midwifery mentorship, to develop a work-based learning module to train midwives as mentors (and test the module by training 40 mentors) and make improvements in 4 clinical pilot sites (8 clinics, a mixture of government, faith-based and private facilities). Our team of 7 UK midwives have completed their assignments and all our targets have been met. Our team is here to collect the last of the data, to conduct a closing workshop presenting the model to all the stakeholders, to coordinate the final evaluation, to undertake some qualitative research and to generate ideas for follow-on projects.

New solar light at Mukono Level IV Health Centre installed by the MOMENTUM project - 20 deliveries a day and previously delivering babies by candlelight when the power was off. One candle nearly caused a catastrophic fire. Now students can get experience of conducting deliveries round the clock

Alex, lead midwife, proudly showing us the solar light switch

Our team is comprised of 3 RCM staff members: Eleanor and I from the global team and Jack Andrew, the RCM's data analyst, here as a career development opportunity and also helping us with data collection and analysis and by making a video about the project. Eleanor's partner Sean and baby Etta are here with us too so it's lovely having a baby to stop us working too hard in the evenings. Apart from working for the RCM Jack is a Decathlete with the British Athletics Team so he's used to training a lot and eating lots of healthy food at regular intervals. The long lunch-less days and lack of fruit and veg are challenging him; today we had to make an emergency stop at a hotel when Jack turned pale and wan!

Always an important visit at the start of our trip, to make sure that our programme continues to align with MOH priorities and to meet important officials who can ensure the sustainability of the project's outputs

Jack and I meeting with Catherine Odeke, the Commissioner for Nursing and Midwifery at the Ministry of Health. Sarah (UPMA's M&E officer) on the right.

Tomorrow we are meeting with midwife tutors and visiting one more clinic. Jack will spend some time in a Kampala Slum with RCM member and midwife Diane Lockhart, working there doing an incredible job. Also 'Fish'y (Rachel Haddock) another UK midwife and RCM member will join us for the weekend. It's great to connect with our international members and offer some encouragement whilst we're in-country.