Empowering Lives

It´s been almost a whole year since our last blog update. We may have been silent, but we haven't been still. This blog writer (Mary Chimbili) apologises. I went off to have a baby and found the road back to be harder than expected :) I have (mostly) finished with the backlog of updates. I've had such an amazing team working in the field that it's taken a while to write about all the wonderful work they've been doing. In 2026 we have: Trained traditional midwives in Bie (li

Votoka was honoured to partner with CICA (Board of Christian Churches of Angola) to present the 2nd National Conference on the Role of the Church in the Prevention of Obstetric Fistula. The event was held in Luanda at the Tocoist Church on the 4th of March with a total of 203 participants. This highly successful 2nd national conference included the presence of the Minister of Health, Dr Silvia Lutacuta, as well as the Secretary of State for Hospitals Dr Leonardo Europeu, and

From half a world away, two Australian surgeons travelled to Angola in February 2026, to bring hope to women requiring fistula repair surgeries. Dr Judith Goh and Dr Hannah Krause were warmly welcomed to Luanda and then to Lubango by the Votoka team and our partners at the CEML missionary hospital. They were joined by visiting specialist Dr Rebecca Zacharia from Switzerland, who was honoured to have a chance to receive further training in obstetric fistula repair surgery from