Donate

Sitina; A Story of Empowerment and Choice

Feb 25, 2025 | Health System Strengthening

Sitina near her home

26-year-old Sitina a mother of two (aged 9 and 4), lives in Shebe Dino district in southern Ethiopia. Like most in her area Sitina couldn’t go further in her education than basic levels of primary school and was wedded off to her husband at quite a young age.

She and her husband raise their two children by traveling to the nearby town to provide their labor and sell goods, which usually fails to bring in enough income to cover their children’s basic needs.

With both parents traveling long distances and working intensive labor works their children are usually left to fend for themselves with the household chores resting on the shoulders of Stina and her eldest nine-year-old daughter, which worries the young mother.

“I don’t like burdening my daughter with housework, unlike me I want her to focus on school and go far in her education, so I try my hardest to make sure I take care of the responsibilities of the house and still be able to bring in the money we need”

It wasn’t long after giving birth to her first child when Sitina started using a short-term birth control (a three-month injection) regularly, which she also continued after the birth of her second child.

Sitina attributes the success of planning her family to the consultation she has received and kept receiving from the health extension workers at the health post in her village, she says if it wasn’t for the guidance they gave her on various birth control methods the number of her children would have been higher and living conditions much more dire.

With full intentions of delaying more children until her family’s situation improves Sitina kept up with her regular birth control method until, the nearby health post run out of supply, and she stopped taking her injections. It wasn’t long after that she realized she was pregnant.

Distressed and confused, she went to the health post seeking consultation, after examining her situation and confirming pregnancy the two health extension workers in the small village who knew and served Sitina for years comforted the young mother easing off her stress.

She was then led to a health center a few kilometers away which travled to via a Motor vehicle and here she was provided with a comprehensive abortion care service, and a long-term birth control method which at the time wasn’t available at the health post in her village.

Sitina meeting with a health care worker
“I was very much relived if I didn’t find that solution, I would have resorted to the traditional methods I heard about because it was impossible for us to have another baby, but now I am able to keep working and provide better things for my two children and am thankful” Sitina told us.