The exhibition A Midwife in the World of Sukuma Women tells about the work of Monika Nowicka, a Polish midwife in the Bugisi clinic, Tanzania. She was able to carry out the “Gift of Life” project thanks to the foreign ministry’s Polish Aid Volunteering Programme. The exhibition depicts the daily life in Africa, as well as the beauty and richness of the continent and, most importantly, of its inhabitants. A small village in the north-west of Tanzania, Bugisi is home to a Catholic mission which runs a vibrant programme of medical assistance and education addressed to the local population.
“As I was writing the Gift of Life project for the first time, I had no idea that it was only the beginning of my long road in Tanzania. I had no idea that this service would give me so much joy. I had no idea that the project would turn out so well. And I had no idea either that the needs would be so huge,” Monika Nowicka writes in her book about working in Africa. The midwife spent three years in Bugisi, and became involved in the life of Sukuma women. She was with them in their happy moments, as they were delivering their babies; but also in difficult situations, when children were being born prematurely or somebody was dying of AIDS.
Maths for Life is another exhibition on view at the Centre for International Debate. Its author, Jolanta Kazak, spent three years teaching mathematics in Tanzania, under the MFA’s Polish Aid Volunteering Programme.
Both exhibitions are open until 28 November 2014 at the Centre for International Debate, 38/42 Krucza Street, Warsaw.
Photo © Dagmara Sobczyk-Stankiewicz/MSZ