WOMAN OF PASSION: Taking medical help to the people

Umra Omar founded Safari Doctors in 2014 to bring medical care to people living in the rural areas of Lamu County. Such villages have little or no access to basic health facilities.

“We travel by road or sea to reach at least 12 villages in Lamu,” says Umra.

“We provide maternal health care, immunisations and drugs.”

Umra is 33 and married. She has two children. She was among the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2016 for the work she and her team are doing at Safari Doctors.

On the evening we meet, she is on a layover for a few hours. “I just landed from Lamu,” she says. She is knackered. “I’m on my way to the United States, my flight is at midnight. I’ll be in LA, (Los Angeles) for a three-day training. The training is about how to strengthen our organisation. It’s part of the CNN Heroes award package. When I return,” Umra continues, “I will head straight to Isiolo for another week. I’m a health consultant with the northern rangeland. I just got the job. The contract will run for one year.”

It’s tough for Umra being away from her children for so long. “I’ll really miss them! My daughter is three months old, my son is three. I left them with my parents in Kilifi.”  Umra opens her rucksack, partially to show me her breast pump and milk-storage bags. We chuckle knowingly.

She bites a fingernail and then says: “I’m thinking about how I’ll keep the breast milk I’ve expressed fresh. I’m not sure if they have freezers on-board. I don’t want to pour it away...” Pause. “...But I’m sure I’ll work my way around the situation.” That same anything-can-get-done attitude is what has sustained her and her team despite the numerous challenges the organisation has faced in the remoteness of Lamu.

After completing her high school education here in Kenya in 2001, Umra got a scholarship to the UK for an internationally-recognised diploma. She lived in the UK for two years, and then got another scholarship for her undergraduate studies in neuroscience and psychology in the US. She graduated in May 2006, then got yet another scholarship for her post-graduate studies in social justice.

“I was already working fulltime by the time I graduated in May 2009. I had to decide whether to keep living abroad and work a regular 9 to5 shift or return home.” Umra relocated to Kenya in December 2010 and got a well-paying job as a programme officer with a local non-profit organisation.

“I was too comfortable there, pushing paper and collecting a salary,” Umra says. “I dealt with health and human rights. It was more of desk activism though. I knew I couldn’t stay there for too long — I had gotten to where I was with the help of others. It was now my turn to give others the same opportunity.”

She quit after two and-a-half years, in 2012. She got married, had her son the following year juggled between being a stay-at-home mum and a health consultant. It was while consulting that her and Dr Anne Spoerry’s paths crossed.

“Safari Doctors wasn’t an entirely new idea,” Umra says. “My friend Dr Spoerry had been running Sailing Doctors for two years, since 2009. She’s French. They shut down operations because of the insecurity brought about by Al-Shabaab. Safari Doctors continued with the work they had already started, but as a grassroots organisation, not a foreign one.”

Umra continues. “I moved to Kilifi with my boy in November 2014. I had only one employee, Harrison Kalu. He is a nurse who worked with Dr Spoerry. He is 65. Kalu would deliver medical supplies by motorbike. At that time, in 2015, we worked in six villages in the Boni/Aweer community — Bodhei, Milimani, Basuba, Mangai, Mararani and Kiangwe.

“After the June 2015 terrorist attacks, the road was declared out of bounds and we were restricted to working by sea, accessing villages in Kiangwe, Mkokoni and Kiwayu. This year, we have expanded our reach to 12 villages, including the original six plus three villages on Pate Island, two villages in Kiwayu and Mkokoni, and Ndau. We reach them via road and sea.”

Umra catches her breath then continues: “I was on my laptop for most of 2015, sending proposals and sourcing for funds from my networks abroad. I get a lot of satisfaction from the work we do.”

“We’ve grown as an organisation,” she says about delegating duties. “I just hired a programme manager to assist me with finance and admin work. I can now focus on strategy and overseeing our growth. I want to build a sustainable model that can be duplicated to other regions. I can also focus on the kindergarten I opened in January (on Shela Island), Shamba la Shela.”