Emma Edgeworth Personal Profile
In 2017 Emma Edgeworth took a career break. She left her home county of Kildare and headed for Mongu, the capital of the Western Provence in Zambia.
Emma was already working with children and families in the Dublin area when she saw the development role with Viatores Christi advertised on a professional website. She interviewed for the position in January and then set off in May for Africa.
She was based in a facility for children with physical and intellectual disabilities under the Cheshire Home Society of Zambia. It is run by presentation sisters, with Sr Cathy and Sr Stella from Ireland leading the team.
“I would look at it nearly as an early intervention residential service, the children got to go to school there which is very unusual because children in Zambia are often excluded from education when they have a disability. Whether it’s finance or actual functioning; if they can’t walk, they can’t go through the deep sand to get to school,” says Emma.
“The sisters over the years would have fought hard to establish good quality education within Cheshire Homes, they would also access physiotherapy daily.”
The children have access to their usual carer, be that a family or home village member as well as school, an extensive physiotherapy programme, activities to stimulate their development and nurses an doctors on site.
Doctors fly in on a small plane three times a year to carry out elective surgeries on the children, fit prostheses and carry out general appointments. The children’s aftercare is facilitated in the home as well in their own home.
“A lot of children would have had snake bites and many of the children had cerebral palsy.”
Emma says the sisters were inspiring to be around, that they held their standard high and were very innovative.
“Sr Cathy Crawford she has developed initiatives in the local area. There was a lodge where people could stay with a restaurant, and the profit made there was put back into the home, it was to generate income to make it become independent.”
As well as this the project has generous donors in Ireland and Britain, and a another funding project that sells bricks to locals.
“She’s an amazing woman Sr Cathy, and all the sisters. They’re just a force of nature really and all their work is driven by I suppose their faith.
“Nano Nagle would have been their founder and it’s a really fantastic order, the sisters themselves I suppose they are dedicated to reaching out to people on the margins and providing a compassionate human rights based service to them. It’s a fantastic order made up of such wonderful women so bright and driven and creative.”
Emma, in her year there worked hand in hand with the staff in the homes and also with the children. “A lot of my role was around training and development in the area of early childhood education, child development, child protection and children’s rights – so it was quite a broad base.”
Emma helped redesign their mother and baby programme along with the sister in charge of education, “That’s really early intervention and mums would travel from all over the Western Province where Mongu is in Zambia.
They would come to the home with young babies and children and the staff would work to target the children at an early age which eventually leads to better outcomes, especially in terms of their physical development explains Emma.
“My work was very much in partnership with the sisters, the Presentation Sisters have been running that organisation for many years and I really learned more from them than I’m sure they learned from me but it was really interesting place to be able to merge our skills for the best interests of the people who attend Cheshire home.”
She says the standard were beyond what she expected in a developing country in terms of the child protection and education.
“A lot of the women I work with might not even have attended school or might not be able to read or write, but we were able to devise the kinds of programmes and trainings and different aids to ensure that everybody could participate.”
Emma says she was grateful for the warm welcome she received at the home and in the locality, that it enhanced her work.
“There are no hierarchy or power issues, everybody was there for a mutual understanding that the needs of the children need to be met in the best way possible, so it was that again which made my experience a lot easier as well.”
She had always wanted to return since she spent three months in Nigeria during her undergraduate degree but only if it was in a useful capacity. Emma was so inspired by her trip that she is now secretary for VC. “It’s so amazing to see people dedicate their whole lives towards helping others and it’s really inspiring to be honest”.