Film Fights Fistula — A Brilliant Way For You to Help Prevent Fistula

Healing Hands of Joy (HHOJ) is helping women dealing with fistula in Ethiopia.

We really love the work Healing Hands of Joy (HHOJ) is doing to help women dealing with fistula in Ethiopia and we love that they use a multi-dimensional approach. HHOJ puts former fistula patients in rural Ethiopia back on their feet by training them to be safe maternal health ambassadors. These ambassadors reach out to pregnant women and help them access healthcare that can help them avoid obstructed labor and fistula. They also help women put their lives back together after fistula repair by providing social support to reconnect them with their families and communities plus job training and investments in future businesses.

We also love their new awareness and fundraising campaign — Film Fights Fistula. Here’s how it works: Thanks to the support of the PBS award-winning science series, NOVA, supporters can host their own screening of the Emmy Award winning Documentary, A Walk To Beautiful, which follows five Ethiopian women who suffer from fistula as they seek a cure. People who are interested in hosting their own screening call up their friends, family, associates, church community, school buddies, sorority sisters…whoever, and turn this into a fundraising event (pass the hat, sell tickets, charge for dinner-and-a-movie…it’s your call — just drum up some money). Healing Hands of Joy will provide a kit for everyone who holds a screening event with all the information you need plus a screening DVD.

Here’s the beauty part — If you raise $350 at your fundraiser, 100% of that money will go to hosting a screening of the film Fistula Is Not A Curse in the rural Ethiopian community of a former fistula patient. This screening and educational event will be part of a community education program designed to teach women and their families why they must access prenatal care and deliver with trained birth attendants to prevent fistula from happening.

If you raise $500, you provide a former fistula patient with food and boarding for a one-month stay at HHOF’s rehabilitation center, which includes maternal healthcare, business training, literacy training, counseling and small business loans.

Imagine what you could do if you raised $1000?

Help us help HHOJ by hosting your own screening party. In addition to providing everything you need, HHOJ has promised to take pictures of the Ethiopian screening/education event you sponsor. That way, you and your community can see for yourself just how much your dinner-and-a-movie fundraiser is doing for women. Log on here to learn how to host your Films Fight Fistula event.