Manawatū Overtones Chrorus will perform live at Kingston Community Church this month.
Manawatū Overtones Chrorus will perform live at Kingston Community Church this month.
A group of 35 Manawatū women are singing to support a cause affecting women on the other side of the world.
Manawatū Overtones Chorus will perform to help highlight the plight of Ethiopian women suffering from obstetric fistula and support charitable organisation Hamlin Fistula New Zealand.
Sylvia Fountain, who sings and is co-director of the group with Liz Watts, said it wasn’t about the choir. The primary focus was to support the work of Hamlin Fistula NZ.
“This is an extra way of getting people through the door,” she said.
Manawatū Overtones Chorus is a group of women of all ages who sing in unaccompanied four-part harmony barbershop style, and is one of 15 groups nationwide who are members of Sweet Adelines International.
The group recently placed second in the small chorus competition and fourth overall at the Sweet Adelines NZ Competition in Dunedin in May.
“Our hope for this event is to attract more listeners to the story of the life-changing work undertaken by the Hamlin hospital in Ethiopia,” she said.
Hamlin Fistula NZ was created by Dr Reg and Dr Catherine Hamlin who travelled to Ethiopia in the 1950s and, having never seen a case before, refined a surgical technique to repair obstetric fistula injuries
The Hamlins opened the Hamlin Obstetric Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1974 and through the course of their work have treated more than 70,000 patients and trained 230 fully qualified midwives.
Sylvia Fountain and Ric Foxley.
Ashurst man Ric Foxley first visited Ethiopia in 2009. He went to the Hamlin hospital there and he said it left a huge impression on him.
“It’s one of the worst things that can happen to a woman ... the work they do there is incredible,” he said.
“It’s something that people aren’t aware of in New Zealand.”
The condition is described as an internal injury caused by an obstructed labour where a woman doesn’t have access to emergency medical care or the option of caesarean section during childbirth.
Obstetric fistula is a tear or hole between the birth canal and the bladder or rectum that can leave survivors leaking urine and faeces and lead to severe infection. In severe cases, some women suffer paralysis.
About 31,000 women are still living with untreated fistula injuries in Ethiopia. An estimated 3000 women suffer a fistula injury each year in Ethiopia.
More than 90% of women who suffer an obstetric fistula will give birth to a stillborn baby, often after hours of obstructed labour that can last days.
Foxley said sufferers were often subjected to social stigma due to their smell, the mistaken assumption they have a disease, and can leave women trapped in a life of pain, shame and isolation.
The root cause was lack of access to maternity care, he said, while poverty and malnutrition in childhood contributed to stunting of the skeleton and pelvis, which can contribute to obstetric fistula.
Aboutd 70% of rural births in Ethiopia happen without a midwife or doctor present. Trained maternity care was critical to helping prevent the condition.
Foxley recently found a Hamlin Fistula support group in New Zealand that was based in Christchurch, and has arranged for Hamlin Fistula chairwoman Joli Wescombe to speak at two meetings in Palmerston North on August 22.
The first meeting is at Te Manawa at 2pm, and the second at Kingston Community Church at 7pm, where a koha towards the cause is welcomed.
