Accompaniment in Action: The Nursing and Midwifery Week
May 15, 2026 2026-05-15 15:14Accompaniment in Action: The Nursing and Midwifery Week
Guided by UGHE’s core values of accompaniment, the Centre for Nursing and Midwifery (CNM) team reached high school students, young mothers, and communities across Ruli and Burera during International Nurses Week. According to accompaniment, the only way to deliver quality care to the poorest communities is to be present with them.
Planting seeds of purpose: Career Guidance as a systemic investment
On 5 May, the International Day of the Midwife, themed One Million More Midwives, the CNM convened a career guidance session at Ruli Higher Institute of Health. The event brought together the Vice Chancellor, senior faculty, and 100 pre-service nursing and midwifery students.
The session used the Career Venn Diagram as a conceptual anchor, drawing on three evidence-based assessment tools: the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator to map personality to professional pathways; the High5 Strengths Assessment to surface latent capacity; and the Character Strengths Test to help students identify their most congruent professional identities. The tools are widely available. What made the session different was who used them, and in what spirit.
The session aligned with the 2026 International Nurses Day theme, Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives, and demonstrated something that workforce planners often miss: that students should choose careers based on whether they can see themselves thriving in them. Accompaniment at the career stage means showing up before they are lost to the profession.
Accompanying the young ones in Sexual and Reproductive Health
Seven MSc Global Nursing Leadership students and the Burera focal Nurses for Youth Friendly Services volunteered to join the CNM team at Runaba and George Fox High Schools to deliver a Sexual and Reproductive Health talk in a safe, respectful space, where 1321 students’ concerns were explored and clarified with dignity. The School directors warmly affirmed the partnership with UGHE as empowering and transformative in their schools. Students left not only better informed but also smiling, with sanitary materials and the knowledge that their sexual and reproductive health matters. When we ask why adolescents make ‘poor choices’, we are often asking the wrong question. The better question is: when did the system last show up for them? Not to lecture but to listen.
When a cup becomes a statement of dignity
The week’s most consequential encounter took place at Kirambo, Rwerere, Butaro and Cyanika Health Centres, where the CNM team delivered sexual, reproductive, and menstrual health education to 46 teen mothers. Each woman left with an Asan Menstrual Cup, donated by Ben Kahrl, an advocate for reproductive equity in vulnerable communities.
These reusable cups, lasting up to 10 years with simple soap-and-water cleaning and periodic boiling, proved transformative for those who had previously gone without adequate protection. Evidence indicates menstrual cups reduce leakage comparably or better than disposables, support better intimate health, and offer high cost and environmental benefits. Delivering a message that this young mother, in this circumstance, matters. That the system has not forgotten her.
Walking Together: The Road Ahead
What this week demonstrated, however, is something that statistics alone cannot capture: the transformative power of presence. Of showing up. Of walking with communities rather than prescribing to them from a distance. The CNM is currently working on an IAS project in dignified care for people with HIV and the scale-up of mental health services through the mhGAP Program.
The International Day of the Midwife is celebrated on 5th May, while International Nurses Day is celebrated every 12th May, the birthday anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern-day nursing. The Nurses week falls in between the two dates.
We are grateful to Mr Ben Kahrl, an advocate for reproductive equity, for donating menstrual cups, and to Campus Operations for the sanitiser bottles to our clinics. Your generosity made a real difference. If any unit has medical supplies nearing expiration, please partner with us to continue giving back to our vibrant communities.
