Kumba

One operation – a family life restored

In early 2005, thirty-year-old Kumba was the first patient at the Mercy Ships West African Fistula Centre in Sierra Leone. Like every woman at the centre, her story is a unique one and fraught with challenges and hardships, but Kumba also represents how Mercy Ships’ services in Sierra Leone radically change lives for the better by bringing hope and healing.

A fistula is a double tragedy. In a country where one in three children dies before the age of five, stillbirth is particularly grim. Compounding this, women suffer embarrassment, shame, and isolation for months and even years. For Kumba, the wait was three years.

In a sense, Kumba was fortunate. In many cases, a woman with a fistula loses her husband, who is her primary source of economic security. Rejected and unable to even enter a market to sell things, she avoids the outside world. Yet Kumba’s husband was by her side during the difficult years until her operation.

Today, thanks to the work of skilled Mercy Ships surgeons, Kumba is healed and even has a child. She can walk freely, enter her local market if she wishes, and can live without any shame or stigma. Indeed, she is an inspiring role model for her peers. Sierra Leone is a country with overwhelming challenges and for many, there is great need. But for women like Kumba, there is hope and joy.