Fatuma Mohamed

About Fatuma

Fatuma graduated as a registered nurse and midwife from nursing school in 1974 and was the first woman in her family to be fully educated. She has worked in various hospital settings from 1975 to 2005 including general nursing, maternity units, operating theatres, outpatients and accident and emergency. Fatuma has been working for Health Poverty Action since 2008 and now works on programmes which aim to reduce maternal and child mortality in Somaliland.

Fatuma met with MPs

Fatuma with Pauline Latham

Fatuma met with two MPs on her visit to raise awareness amongst parliamentary leaders about the plight of women in Somaliland. She met with Pauline Latham OBE MP for Mid Derbyshire who is a member of the House of Commons Select committee on international development and Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on HIV and AIDS, and Kerry McCarthy MP for Bristol East who founded the APPG for Somaliland.

Ms Latham said: “Life in Somaliland is hard for many people in one of the world’s poorest countries. It was heartening to meet Fatuma and hear firsthand about the help available to women and girls who survive violence from men.”

Fatuma with Kerry McCarthy

Ms McCarthy said: “No girl anywhere should be forced to undergo female genital mutilation. I was pleased to meet Fatuma and give my support for Health Poverty Action’s efforts to eradicate this cruel practice”

Read more about what Pauline Latham had to say

Read more about what Kerry McCarthy had to say

Fatuma met with Dr Comfort Momoh

Head of Policy, Corinna Heineke (left), and Maurico Vazquez, Head of Africa Programmes (centre), with Fatuma (right)

Fatuma,  along with Corinna Heineke, Head of Policy, and Head of Africa Programmes Maurico Vazquez visited Dr Comfort Momoh MBE, FGM Consultant and Public Health Specialist at Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital, where she runs a clinic supporting women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures and carries out operations to reverse FGM.  Fatuma and Comfort shared their specialist knowledge of the issues around FGM and how to eradicate the practice.

Health Poverty Action’s Supporter reception

Supporter Reception

We invited our dedicated supporters to come to our office and meet Fatuma and hear more about our work overseas. The intimate gathering of supporters, staff and trustees received a talk from Fatuma on what health programmes we run in Somaliland and how we have helped to improve their health services. Supporters were pleased to see behind the scenes of Health Poverty Action and had the chance to ask Fatuma and the staff questions about the work of Health Poverty Action. We all enjoyed our evening and we would again like to thank all our supporters who came.

Fatuma visited St Mary’s University College

Fatuma visited the students studying Applied Theatre to talk about the work of Health Poverty Action in Somaliland. The Applied Theatre course at St. Mary’s University College is a new programme set up to explore ways in which theatre based research and practice might actively contribute to social change. Since 2008, students have worked in partnership with Theatre for a Change (TfaC) in Malawi. TfaC uses innovative strategies to stimulate dialogue, interaction and behaviour change to hopefully change attitudes towards gender equality and HIV/Aids in the teaching communities of these countries.  As a part of their ‘Theatre for Development’ module, from 1^st May 2011 to 20^th May 2012 students will travel to Lilongwe, Malawi.  Fatuma helped them to understand more about social issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Students at St Mary's

Fatuma talks to St Mary's students

Last modified: 25/01/2012