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Preparing for the next trip

Tomorrow I am leaving for Italy and a workshop in Padova (not far from Venice). This will be the first time I have worked with Italian midwives and I am looking forward to the challenge. Piera Maghella will translate for me and it will be fun tot work with her in this way. She was the organiser of the very successful Conference last year on the theme of waterbirth and she is a well known author of books for expectant parents in Italy.

There are always loose ends to tie up before I travel for an extended period. A request has come from Armenia asking us to tender for a US Aid funded project to train childbirth educators for a pregnancy education program that is to be rolled out across the country. The scope of work I was emailed is very detailed - they are hoping to achieve a frankly impossible amount in the space of a three day in-service, and after that the people in this initial group are supposed to then go out and train everyone else. When I think of the time and effort that goes into making a basic educator in this country, and what it takes for us to “train the trainers” I doubt that this program will achieve its stated goals. However, good luck to them - I won’t be submitting a tender, but I will give them some feedback on their proposal. I wonder what Armenia is like..... I guess I will never know!

I have also been approached by a midwife from my recent Israeli workshop group who is keen to translate my book “The Midwife Companion” into Hebrew. That would be exciting ! I suggested she explore publishing possibilities before we get too far into this project, but it would be great to have it available in yet another language. Let’s hope this propject can go ahead.

My neighbour seems to be in early labour today, so I may be at a birth tonight... that would be a lovely way to get “in the mood” for my next round of travels.

Posted by andrea at September 27, 2004 05:20 PM

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