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2006 Winner of Yozwick Memorial Scholarship: Monde Imasikun

In Zambia’s capitol city, as a community health nurse/liaison officer to the Lusaka District Health Management Team (LDHMT), Monde Imasiku lives and works in two distinctly different worlds. Her employer, the republic’s University Teaching Hospital, works small miracles each time it tirelessly addresses ongoing outbreaks of cholera and measles—alongside the insidious, unrelenting ravages of HIV/AIDS

Originally trained as a nurse and a midwife, Monde feels great appreciation for the new life-saving efficiencies of laptop computers and wireless and fiber optic networks for perinatal record systems. But a sad reality throughout her country’s enhanced maternity care services is the ever-present need for a parallel “pharm/lab” disease management system for broad-based antiretroviral therapies (ART) against a war that never ends.

Monde and her husband have five “holistic-kids,” ages 21 months to 23 years. The proud grandparents of two are also foster parents, and somehow our scholarship winner finds time to volunteer with two local organizations for young mothers: Hope Fountain and Family Foundation of Hope.

“The physical life, in the body, is certainly helped in the high-tech ways of modern medicine,” she says, “but my patients are also very sick at heart. There is no peace in your spirit when you feel condemned by the outside world, and the life force is weakened when you don’t know how to love yourself from the inside.

“That’s because many mothers here are so young. They don’t know what it is to feel loved, wanted and cared for. Many pregnancies result from preteen sexual abuse, or incest. Some are infected by HIV, and fear they will pass this on to an unborn child. Society hasn’t protected them, and they are too young to even know what to do. They feel desperate; they hate their life. If you hate yourself, you may come to hate your baby.”

Monde knows that this helpless and hopeless mindset is a vicious cycle. “Bred into a newborn, the spiritual disease can become far more dangerous than bodily illness.”

That’s why her goal, with AIHT studies in holistic childcare, is to teach young people a profound appreciation for all that is. “The fullness of life comes to those who know the balance of mind, body and spirit health. One can be content and satisfied amidst poverty and chaos. The stability that we bring into our home life and out into the world helps our life and the lives of others to become more meaningful and positive.

“As more people come to understand holistic approaches to life—nutrition, exercise, meditation, prayer—I believe they can better understand why others behave with certain mannerisms. If one develops the strong confidence to pause and read a situation beforehand, a person can learn to calmly avoid unnecessary conflicts.

“This is high-touch. This is how we reach out with love to assist many others to overcome their shortfalls and rebalance their own energies, on and on.”

“I believe we are all born to be healthy, free, fairly treated and fully loved; to know that we are capable and able to achieve all our heart’s desires, no matter what obstacles may come to pass.”

For three years Monde has produced a weekly talk radio series. Her “Sacredness of Human Life” programming includes guests who address topics ranging from homelessness, which is also known there as streetism; to the intrinsic joy of becoming a mother; and the healing powers of forgiving and forgetting.

“I believe we are all born to be healthy, free, fairly treated and fully loved; to know that we are capable and able to achieve all our heart’s desires, no matter what obstacles may come to pass.

“I want to be a holistic nurse who liberates young people to live life to the fullest. Through their generation we can help make life a better place for all, worldwide, without any barriers or boundaries before us.”