On a wonderful Good News Update this week, Cheri and I announced another enormous milestone in the project in Kantolomba: The first two of our nursing students have returned to their community as fully registered nurses!
There are so many things about it, and I encourage you to listen to the update if you didn’t get to hear it, but what stood out for me was Cheri’s comment, “everyone matters.” It truly is the foundation of all of Living Compassion: All matter.
As Silvia and Mirriam wait for their first official job postings, they will volunteer at a local Kantolomba medical clinic. Picture that after a lifetime of coming from a place where people don’t get educated, don’t have jobs, certainly don’t become professionals; a place where if you walk into a medical clinic, you feel intimidated to ask questions, to speak up because you know this person giving you medical services is different from you, better than you, comes from a place where people matter; after a lifetime of that, today you walk into the clinic and see that the woman about to take your blood pressure, in her crisp, new nurse’s uniform, welcoming you with a huge smile, is your friend, your neighbor, your niece, your daughter, your granddaughter! Imagine how clearly that smile communicates: YOU MATTER!
Silvia and Mirriam have become registered nurses and they have become heroic mentors for us All.
We shall post photos of them in their uniforms, at the clinic attending to their neighbors, just as soon as we have them!
In Gasshō
Jen