Partnership in Action

Our most important partners at Birth with Dignity are those who believe in our mission and partner with us fiscally. We are so very grateful for the ability to teach throughout the country, start Birth with Dignity programs and keep those programs supplied year after year with the items needed to prevent maternal and fetal deaths, as well as provide bereavement care to families after a stillbirth. We thank you partners, as you truly walk alongside us hoping that our impact will be great among the mothers and families of Uganda. We also ask God to bless your lives as you have blessed Birth with Dignity.

Esther has been helping us since the beginning of Birth with Dignity and is indispensable. She manages our expenses in Uganda and helps us get blankets, privacy screens and other supplies that need to be purchased and delivered to Mbale Hospital. She is the best.

We met Treasure over Skype in 2021 when the president of the International Stillbirth Alliance suggested she speak to us. You can read Treasure’s very powerful story under the Blog from June 1, 2021. Since 2022 Treasure has been an integral partner of ours and she speaks at most of our conferences and trainings. We love the impact she has, as she gives a Ugandan mother’s perspective on stillbirth loss and ways to enhance care. At times, Treasure’s husband Moses speaks too, and their son Njuba always brings “cute” to our conferences.

Mackay and Julius have been our drivers since 2017. In addition to keeping us safe on the roads, they are very active as RC Mbale Metropolitan Club Rotarians, trying to help their villages improve in many ways. In 2022 we went to the healthcare facility in Julius’ village, and he expressed an interest in taking some of our teaching materials there to improve maternity care. Since then, we have been equipping both he and Mackay with teaching posters and other materials that they can leave behind to try and decrease maternal and fetal deaths in these rural facilities. We are happy to have their help.

Krista was a Bethel student when we used to take nursing students to Uganda, so she is familiar with maternity care in Uganda. Before our 2023 trip, this was her post on social media. Her blankets were a labor of love and beautiful.

Tomorrow these blankets make their way to Uganda. It’s not a lot, as I’m learning to sew, but it’s a start! I pray they bless women in the same way I was blessed when Joshua was born. May they get to hold their sweetly swaddled baby in their arms & take in all the beauty. May they experience those precious moments of saying hello before having to say goodbye. And may God uphold them as they navigate life after loss.

Stacey is president of St George Share and supports families in the event of pregnancy and infant loss. She had an early loss at 10 weeks, and lost her son Benjamin a year later at 39 weeks. Stacey feels these loss gifts are important because they are a tangible representation of a baby gone too soon. For some families, these small gifts are all that they have to represent their babies. The contents can be framed, placed in a memorial, or kept privately. We are so grateful for Stacey and her care of Ugandan moms.

The Thimble Bees are a group of women from Wayzata Community Church in Minnesota. Their mission is to make and knit blankets, quilts, remembrance sets, prayer shawls, and other items for hospitals and agencies that serve families. They have made many blankets for us to send to Mbale Hospital to further our work there.

The blankets are critical because the families who have a stillbirth are reluctant to use their own blanket for the baby. We want to help the family see and hold their baby if they wish, in accordance with global perinatal bereavement standards. These blankets allow a family to hold their baby in a blanket made with love. The family is able to honor and celebrate their baby’s life and take home this blanket as a forever keepsake. We are so grateful to this group of women!

Birth with Dignity is a fiscally sponsored project of the Star Legacy Foundation. Specializing in stillbirth awareness and prevention, Star Legacy Foundation offers sponsorship, along with development and management support, to select projects that align closely with their essential mission.

Brandon Zell is one of the first people who believed in Birth With Dignity. We heard that Brandon made websites and we had no clue what we were doing, and we still don’t! So, we reached out to him in Indiana, and he is solely responsible for all creativity and design on this website. Over the last 5 years Brandon has helped us, supported us, charged us less than the going rate by considering us “his ministry,” and we cannot thank him enough for all his work on behalf of Birth With Dignity.