Being a midwife just isn’t a profession for her, says Sebabatso Tsosane – it is a calling. She says she was born into this world “to serve different girls”.

Tsosane’s curiosity in sexual and reproductive well being was sparked when she herself ended up in hospital after being recognized with endometriosis. She is a registered midwife. She tells Highlight that for years she suffered from extreme and painful menstrual cycles. Endometriosis is a situation during which tissue that usually strains the uterus grows outdoors the uterus. With endometriosis, the tissue might be discovered on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, or intestines and the most typical signs are ache and menstrual irregularities. It was this, her personal expertise, that made her realise that many ladies could undergo in silence and have little information about their sexual and reproductive well being.

Born in a village known as Sediba in Thaba Nchu simply outdoors Bloemfontein, she can be a midwifery lecturer on the College of Free State’s Faculty of Nursing and has began work on a Grasp’s diploma in Nursing with a concentrate on sexual and reproductive well being. In 2016, Tsosane based the non-profit Black Ladies Come up – she can be the CEO.

Restricted information

“For years,” Tsosane says, “I used to be affected by extreme interval pains and believed that it was regular for me as a girl to expertise heavy and painful durations. Throughout my years of examine to turn out to be a nurse, I made a decision to hunt medical assist.”

She says an extended and painful course of adopted.

“I underwent take a look at after take a look at and ultimately needed to go for laparoscopic surgical procedure to know what was unsuitable with me. My concern was if I as a nursing pupil within the medical area don’t have any information about this, what then about extraordinary girls – these girls in rural areas, who don’t have any sources and entry to data? I knew from that second that I wanted to do one thing,” Tsosane says.

“I noticed a necessity,” she says. “Working in services the place girls include ailments like cervical cancers which is actually preventable and ladies not reserving for his or her antenatal visits when they’re pregnant – I realised that [many] girls aren’t educated and knowledgeable about sexual and reproductive well being.” She says most often, girls search assist solely when they’re struggling to fall pregnant usually it’s too late as a result of then their fertility could already be compromised.

Black girls come up

For a lot of girls in rural areas and deprived communities, there’s a lack of entry to sources, data, and reproductive healthcare providers. In keeping with a World Well being Group factsheet, delivering complete sexual and reproductive rights interventions is an integral part of common healthcare.

However based mostly on a report launched this week by the Cease Stockouts venture, South Africa nonetheless has some challenges to iron out in making accessible fundamentals corresponding to contraceptives.

With Black Ladies Come up, Tsosane says she needs to vary the restricted entry to those providers and needs to help girls and women in rural and deprived communities by serving to them entry high quality sexual reproductive well being data and providers. “This may assist them to make knowledgeable and accountable selections for themselves and their households,” she says. “Ladies are the spine of our society and if we heal them, we heal a neighborhood and due to this fact heal a nation.”

Partnerships

Pharmaceutical firm Bristol Myer Squibb lately awarded Black Ladies Come up a grant to do cervical most cancers screening within the Free State. With the grant, they bought a cell clinic which Tsosane says may be very useful for outreach in rural areas. The intention is to do cervical most cancers screenings and educate girls on sexual and reproductive well being issues. “So, we carry them cell clinics to obtain pap smears, cervical most cancers screenings, and training,” she says. They work with the provincial well being division to make sure clean referrals when wanted.

Combating stigma

“We additionally attempt to destigmatise sexual well being in these communities,” she says. “Many ladies nonetheless don’t get pap smears usually. In rural areas, many ladies don’t even know what a pap smear is and that is the place our initiatives are available in. We offer and organise sexual reproductive coaching in these communities and train girls and women about sexual well being. We additionally create platforms the place speaking about sexual reproductive well being is regular and that ladies wouldn’t have to undergo in silence.”

“We have now seen how girls and women skip faculty and work due to interval pains and heavy menstruation. We have now seen what number of girls are struggling or have died from cervical most cancers solely due to the lack of know-how. So, making this distinction within the lives of girls, she says, makes her pleased.

Mrs SA and ‘boss strikes’

Tsosane says she is now at a degree in her life – at 27 – the place she is “simply so enthusiastic about every part that [she] does”. She plans to pursue a PhD after her grasp’s research.

“I’ve all the time been a lady that loves stunning issues and through my college days on the College of Free State, I participated in native modelling competitions,” she says.

In 2020 (she bought married in 2019), Tsosane participated within the Mrs SA pageant. “I jumped on the alternative and really noticed this as a chance to be the voice and advocate for girls’s well being,” she says.

“The Mrs SA competitors challenged me in ways in which I can by no means think about,” she says. “However it has helped me a lot as a girl [trying to make it] in enterprise. So, aside from being a midwife, I simply need to proceed to make ‘boss strikes’.”

*This text is a part of Highlight’s 2022 Ladies in Well being sequence.