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Canberra Today 24°/29° | Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

A decade on, Elizabeth still puts in

FOR her 50th birthday Elizabeth McManus asked friends and family to donate to an Ethiopian charity rather than give her gifts.

The charity, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, treats young women who develop an obstetric fistula (a childbirth injury).

Elizabeth McManus… working to get to Ethiopia. Photo by Danielle Nohra

Now, as she approaches the big Six-O, she is asking for donations to raise $10,000 for the charity to join the trip with 19 others that includes a visit to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and participation in the Great Ethiopian Run alongside 45,000 Ethiopians.

“For a few years now I’ve been aware that the Hamlin Fistula organisation runs a trip for interested supporters to visit the hospital, as well as indulge in some sightseeing and compete in the 10-kilometre Great Ethiopian Run,” Elizabeth says.

“This year I’ve decided to take the plunge and sign up, so I’ve started training for the run. Now I need to tackle the fundraising.”

As nurse and a parent who has experienced four “straightforward labours” Elizabeth says she is grateful to live in a country with good hospital access.

In Ethiopia, 93 per cent of obstetric fistula survivors give birth to a stillborn baby.

They then live with a fistula, a hole between the birth canal and the bladder or rectum, which leaves survivors leaking urine or faeces, and sometimes both.

“You don’t choose where you get born. I could have been one of these girls,” Elizabeth says.

“I think that’s what’s really driven me. Most of the time, once they’ve had these injuries their husbands leave.

“The plight of these women, many of them mere teenagers, is heartbreaking as they face isolation and ostracism for the rest of their lives as a result of their fistula,” Elizabeth says.

Elizabeth pays her own travel costs and the $10,000 raised helps pay for surgery for the women and for the running cost of the organisation. Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia also provides the patient with literacy and numeracy classes, a new dress and money to travel home.

 Donations to adventure-2017.everydayhero.com/au/elizabeth-1

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Danielle Nohra

Danielle Nohra

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