International Nonprofit Honors Chesapeake Nurse and Midwife

NORFOLK, VA (09/15/2010)(readMedia)-- Physicians for Peace will honor Robin Jones, R.N., on Oct. 2 for her ongoing support and humanitarian work in Nigeria. The award ceremony will take place during the 2010 Physicians for Peace Celebrate the Nations Gala Reception in Virginia Beach, Va.

"Robin has been an exemplary volunteer with Physicians for Peace and our efforts to improve maternal and child health in Nigeria," said Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.), president and chief executive officer of Physicians for Peace. "Because she is always culturally sensitive, Robin has established important relationships with the village leaders, health care workers in the clinic and the mothers who have come to the clinic to deliver their babies."

Beyond the Call of Duty

Jones, a nurse and midwife from Chesapeake, Va., first joined Physicians for Peace on a mission to Monrovia, Liberia, in 2007. Then, working through a Physicians for Peace partnership with Columbia University's Millennium Cities Initiative, Jones traveled to Pampaida, a village in Nigeria, for several weeks at a time in 2009 and 2010. In Nigeria, Jones has taught people to make rudimentary masks that help provide newborn respiratory resuscitation, instructed nurses and village health workers on the basics of prenatal care and safe delivery and developed relationships with traditional birth attendants.

On missions, Jones maintains the highest possible standards, ensuring that both the education she provides and the tools she uses are appropriate and sustainable. Change can be slow, but Jones already has seen results. Thanks to her work, for instance, more people living in and around Pampaida now travel to the clinic for at-risk deliveries and traditional birth attendants, often suspicious of outsiders and their motives, have a greater understanding of important risk factors that influence maternal and child health. The risks mothers and children in Nigeria face can be great: during her first mission to Pampaida, Jones worked with a birth team to save the life of a hemorrhaging patient. The grateful mother asked Jones to name the infant. The boy, Mathias, is progressing beautifully, and the mother has become a strong supporter of Jones and her work in Pampaida.

Jones is one of three 2010 Medical Diplomat award winners. The other winners, Omar Boukhriss, the owner of Omar's Carriage House, Voilà and The Pagoda Restaurant in Norfolk, and Dr. Ed Karotkin, Physicians for Peace chairman-elect, also will be recognized at the gala, along with President Bill Clinton, who will receive Physicians for Peace's highest honor, the Charles E. Horton Award for Humanitarian Service, via video. At the gala, Physicians for Peace also will present an Excellence in Service Award to Dr. Juan Montero, a mission volunteer, team leader, former board member and friend of Physicians for Peace since 1995 and a key organizer of Physicians for Peace - Philippines.

"Each of the 2010 award recipient has demonstrated ongoing, selfless contributions to the achievement of the Physicians for Peace mission in training and education, clinical and research excellence and delivery of health care services," Sconyers said.

Tickets Still Available

The 2010 Celebrate the Nations Gala Reception will be held at the Cavalier Beach Club in Virginia Beach on Saturday, October 2, 2010, from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Tickets and sponsorship opportunities are still available. For more information, visit www.physiciansforpeace.org or contact Sallie Ray, sray@physiciansforpeace.org; (757) 625-7569.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE

Physicians for Peace is an international non-profit organization that mobilizes volunteer healthcare professionals to assist developing nations with unmet medical needs and scarce resources. Through effective, hands-on medical education and training, clinical care and donated medical supplies, Physicians for Peace develops long-term, sustainable, replicable, and evidence-based programs to help partner nations build medical capability and capacity to help themselves. Since 1989 Volunteers for the 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization have conducted medical missions in more than 60 countries.

With its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., Physicians for Peace has programs in 22 countries and offices in Manila, the Philippines and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In 2009, the organization celebrated its 20th Anniversary.

For more information, go to: www.physiciansforpeace.org

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