Dr. Maha works with World Vision’s health program in Kurdish Iraq providing door to door primary healthcare to people who have been displaced by violence.
“Even meeting the IDPs (internally displaced people) during our weekly health clinics and talking to them — showing them we care — gives me a sense of fulfillment,” Dr. Maha says. In addition to consultations and free medicines, the medical team dispenses “good words” that “can ease people’s suffering.”
Dr. Maha was the first woman in her family to graduate from university. Where she grew up, in Salah Al-Din, women were not encouraged to pursue higher education.
“My parents encouraged me to become a doctor,” she says. “My mother told me never to put limit to what I could do. She dreamed for us and with us.”
Her resolve to become a doctor was strengthened when her aunt and nephew died during childbirth. “It was a shock to me,” Dr. Maha says. “She had three children.”
“Mothers are so important to the family. They are the cornerstones of society,” she says. “With the death of my aunt, her children lost their direction.”
From that time on, Dr. Maha committed herself to helping women.
*Name changed to protect identity.
Photo©2015 Cecil Laguardia/World Vision
