Dearest Beloved Felicity.
It is so incredibly difficult to capture the essence of Felicity in words. From the moment we first met, in London, at a White Ribbon Alliance poetry event at the residence of the Commonwealth Secretary General in early 2015, and immediately connected, Felicity became my comrade in the battle to save the lives of pregnant women in Africa and around the world. It is a measure of Felicity's enthusiam and commitment to the cause, that less than a month after we met, she was in Kwara State to meet midwives and mothers there.
As a highly experienced midwife and well respected educator, Felicity brought a wealth of wisdom, and a committed passion, to our quest to ensure that every mother was educated with the information she needed to assure her and her newborn's survival, but also Felicity was a role model and advocate for every midwife to care for mothers with respect and dignity, assuring a high quality continuum of care and counsel, from pregnancy and birth, to age.
Through Felicity's input, this translated to the Wellbeing Foundation's Mamacare antenatal and postnatal education program in over 31 health facilities across Nigeria. Felicity was passionate about helping mothers breastfeed successfully, through our Global Breast Feeding Initiative and Baby-Friendly outreaches, which again, the Foundation's midwives followed where Felicity led.
Under Felicity's guidance, and her unwavering conviction that even qualified midwives should regularly upgrade their skills, the Wellbeing Foundation brings the most modern lifesaving training for midwives in Nigeria, through the EmONC Emergency Management of Obstetric and Newborn Complications Program, in partnership with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and Johnson & Johnson, investing in anatomical model skills laboratories at medical education institutions.
Felicity was an uncommon and unique hands-on leader, who always ensured consensus was achieved. Forever kind, friendly, courteous, lively and helpful, her considerable skills took her across the world at every level from villages to the United Nations General Assembly as she promoted the core principle we shared with the International Confederation of Midwives, of placing midwives, their skills and competence, at the heart of global health solutions.
I will miss Felicity enormously, as an ally, as a sister, as a midwife, and as a friend. I am hugely honoured to have known and worked with Felicity, and am blessed by her contributions always. I am only comforted by her last words to me, when I had thanked her for representing me on a panel discussion in Lagos, telling her "Thanks Felicity, Lifesaver" to which she replied "YE, you know I love this".
Our heartbreaking loss of Felicity, a loving mother, daughter, wife and sister, a midwife par excellence, a global advocate, an educator, an ally and a friend, a lifesaver, an angel, is Heaven's gain.
May Felicity rest in peace. Amen.