 |
Vicki Penwell
Vicki Penwell is an international humanitarian aide worker, licensed midwife and CPM, and teacher who has practiced for 30 years, first in Alaska and then in Asia for the past 20 years. She and her family founded a non-profit charitable organization called Mercy In Action that trains midwives and establishes birth centers in poor countries. The Mercy In Action birth centers, which are NARM-approved out-of-country sites for training CPMs, are funded by donations and midwifery student tuition so that every delivery is free of charge to the woman and her family. Outcomes of more than 12,000 births have been excellent.
> More
Penwell, who holds a Master’s Degree in Midwifery and a Master’s Degree in Intercultural Studies, has been teaching midwifery since 1981. She has designed curriculum for both USA and Developing World midwifery schools, and is a guest lecturer for the University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii. She has taught midwives and primary health workers in Nepal, Cambodia, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Canada. In addition, Vicki leads two annual NARM Study Retreats each year, and offers Midwifery Skills Workshops on both sides of the world; her specialty is Midwifery Volunteerism training seminars that prepare midwives and other health workers to have the skill set necessary to save lives of mothers and babies in the poorer regions of the Developing World, where maternal and infant mortality is still shockingly high. Vicki and her husband and adult son Ian and daughter in law Rose live in the Philippines where they establish and oversee birth centers for the poor., and train local and foreign midwives. Vicki’s life-time work with Mercy In Action is featured in a chapter in Birth Models That Work, Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd, Jan Tritten, et al.; University of California Press (2009).
> Contact
> Publications
- A Hidden Tragedy: Birth as a Human Rights Issue in Developing Countries—Midwifery Today, Issue 94, Summer 2010
- “Mercy In Action Philippine Birth Center Statistics”—Midwifery Today, Issue 70, Summer 2004
- “Mercy In Action: Training Missionary Midwives to Serve the Poor”—Midwifery Today, Issue 60, Winter 2001
- “Philippines: In the Night Lorega”. Midwifery Today, Issue 58, Summer 2001
- “Gentle Hands Across Manila”—Midwifery Today, Issue 30, Summer 1994
- “Midwifery Education: A Global Perspective”—Midwifery Today, Issue 20, 1991–92
- Chapter on “Mercy In Action” in Birth Models That Work, edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd, Jan Tritten, et al.
|