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Nigist, A journey of Compassion in Action

Feb 19, 2025 | Health System Strengthening

Nigist

Born and raised in Southern Ethiopia’s Guji Zone, Nigist has been providing health care services at one of the health centers in Wendo Genet, Wesha. After completing her studies in Shashmene six years ago, she took up her current nursing position at Wesha health center working closely with youth and adolescent people aged 14-24.

Throughout her career, Nigist has always been highly engaged in SRH activities, going to school to school activities, and training youth counselors on a number of SRH issues including contraceptives, Sexually transmitted infections and more. At the health center she provided family planning and counseling services. Although her services she says were limited to short-term family planning methods.

Nigist at work

“Since I never had the skill to provide long term family planning services such as IUD and Implants, I had to force the young and vulnerable youth I usually served to face another health care provider even though they were much more comfortable with me and preferred to get the services from just one person.” Nigist explains

However, several months ago, she was able to take part in the Ipas supported training that came to the health center she worked at which she says changed the course of her services for the better.

According to Nigist the Ipas training which was both theoretical and practical enabled her to provide long-term family planning services, as well as provision of CAC services. She says that it helped her not only advance her personal skills but also be of greater service to her community than ever before, mainly because she says she was never able to provide abortion services before. 

Nigist working with a patieng

“I have worked with the youth for years and years, I quite often encountered young girls seeking for abortion services, and I was often left feeling helpless as the ones that were assigned to provide the services usually refused to do it, it’s a big relief to be able to help so many young women” said Nigist. 

For Nigist, the biggest effect of the training was the attitudinal shift she notices within herself and her colleagues, she says they used to consider the provision of abortion services as a sinful act which often left them riddled with guilt. Now she says she believes depriving a woman of a service she desperately seeks, to be of the biggest of wrong doings.  

 Nigist says, challenges persist as well, the ever-standing problem of shortage of supplies in contraceptives often hinder women from using birth control methods of their choices leading them to unintended pregnancies. 

She also says counseling and close guidance with the youth is the most essential for long-lasting change, especially at health extension levels because young people still lack awareness especially about abortion services. 

“In rural areas the consequences of unintended pregnancies are very dire, women who are well aware of these consequences would go to great lengths to avoid them, which may even include taking their own lives. And being one of the very few people who can help a woman in such a situation and stop her from taking her own life but doing nothing I think is a true sin” Nigist told us. 

“Most of them don’t even know that it is provided here so we need to strive to fight especially against the stigma surrounding abortion which is fueled by the fact that it is considered taboo even by the providers ourselves and done almost in disguise, so we need to be bolder about it and take the first steps” Nigits asserts.