First male midwifery student graduates from UDS

For the first time in the history of UDS, the university has recorded its first male graduating midwifery student.

Mr Zakaria Fuseni, who once served as the General Secretary of the Midwifery Students Association, is the first male student of the department and graduated as part of the Class of 2019 with a second class upper honours.

As the only guy surrounded by 81 ladies, it is reported that he was really dedicated and had more passionate about the course than most of the ladies.

Zakaria Fuseni with his colleagues at the Nursing school (image via Zakaria)

When asked why he decided to pursue Midwifery, Mr Zakaria said, “Definitely, it wasn’t my dream to be a midwife. The interest to offer midwifery occurred to me after I completed of S.H.S.”

“I worked in a health facility as a guard where I and my team will always visit the wards including maternity and labour units. I observed that most mothers especially teenage and the less educated mothers were emotionally down after going through labour,” he added.

Looking for answers to a problem, he said he started to “research on what could be done and also the possible cause of it. During my research, I realised that the care they received was far less than the approved care that was due to these mothers.”

“By this, I came to realise that I would do my fellow mothers and sisters good if I take the responsibility of caring for them. So the question that begun to run in my mind was; how best can I position myself to provide the best of care? I saw three professions that could help me achieve this: Medicine, Obstetrics/Gynecology and Midwifery,” he continued.

Zakaria Fuseni at Graduation (image from Zakaria Fuseni)

With these three possible professions outlined, “I tried finding the most appropriate one that would serve my purpose and I realised that all these were science-oriented and had little insight into human emotions except midwifery which provides knowledge and skill on biomedical as well as psychosocial wellbeing of women and families.”

“Since this was in line with my objective, I took that line of academic pursuit. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I said to myself whatever it may be, I must achieve my goal,” Zakaria said.

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He added that “My greatest challenge was how to cope with women. You know the life of a woman is a very complex one. Their way of understanding situations and its implication is quite different from that of men.

Speaking on his own way of battle with society’s about his training as a midwife, Zakaria confirmed that he has encountered some stereotypes.

“And oh yes, there have been stereotypes but I never see that as a problem at all because they are things that I had expected,” he said.

Zakaria says he?s very happy and grateful to God that he’s been able to conquer this journey and is prepared to serve with joy and all his heart.

Kudos to you Mr Fuseni.

Kuulpeeps.com is proud of you and you are an example to many.

We hope to see more of your kind on campus soon.