“The Sierra Leone civil war is one of the most vicious wars that has ever happened, and nobody knows about it, just because it’s in Africa,” says Aminata Conteh-Biger, who will address the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

As a child, Aminata lived a charmed life in Freetown, Sierra Leone, alongside her siblings and beloved father. This changed irrevocably when, at just 18 years old, she was kidnapped by rebel forces and held captive for months, used as a weapon of the bloody, violent civil war.

Granted refugee status in 2000, Aminata became one of the very first Sierra Leonean refugee women to settle in Australia.

“My story is a story of millions of girls, not just in Sierra Leone, but all around the world. We can see what is happening in Ukraine, what is happening right now, but we never had the spotlight for people to know the horror of what is happening to us.

“When war happens in the West, to Europeans and white people, you get all the awareness. All around the world, billions have been raised, the world is coming together talking about Ukraine. Sierra Leone has had 11 years of civil war. It is no different.”

In 2014, she formed the Aminata Maternal Foundation, which strives to reduce Sierra Leone’s devastating maternal mortality rates. In 2015, the small country had the worst maternal mortality ratio in the world.

“Every 90 seconds, a pregnant woman dies in Sierra Leone,” Aminata told CW, “while this is completely solvable.

“The people are so capable if we give them the tools for them to rebuild their lives. I get goosebumps when I see a doctor go to Sierra Leone and train a local nurse to do a fistula surgery.”

Fistula is a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of women, 90 per cent of them in Africa. It refers to when an abnormal opening between a woman’s genital tract and urinary tract or rectum is caused by damage from the continuous pressure from the baby’s head stuck in the birth canal.

Through the hole, the woman continuously leaks urine or faeces, sometimes both. Over an excruciating labour, 10 to 12 days says Aminata, the baby often dies and must be extracted. Moreover, these women face shame and social segregation.

Fistula is nearly unheard of in the West, as it can largely be avoided with timely medical attention.

“Sierra Leone is the same population of NSW,” Aminata said. “When I gave birth to my daughter, I almost lost her at St George Hospital in Sydney. I had seven doctors in a room.

“Now in Sierra Leone, there are fewer than eight obstetricians in the country.”

In less than a decade, without paid staff or ample resources, Aminata’s Foundation has opened its own maternity unit, preventing fistulas and training midwives to become midwife educators, boosting numbers of trained nurses.

“These Sierra Leone women are in the surgical theatre with music in the background, restoring a woman’s dignity in 45 minutes with so much calmness. How can you not see the capacity and the capability of these women?”

“I know that the world doesn’t want to see because the world wants Africans to need them.”

Aminata describes Africa’s relation with the West as a perversive parent/child relationship.

“As a parent, you want your child to take responsibility, but you still want them to need you. If Africa was granted dignity, they would be allowed to learn to heal themselves,” she said.

“These other organisations do beautiful work, incredible work. But they pay someone hundreds of thousands to send doctors to do the work, then they leave, and every three years there’s new people.

“They get the praise, while women are dying and continue to die, because you have not gone there to train the women and leave your skills. You’ve gone there to do the work and leave, taking your skills with you. Then what happens? Everything collapses.”

Aminata’s goal for the Maternal Foundation is to see nurses, midwives, and obstetricians from the West come with her to train the women of Sierra Leone, and leave having created jobs and sustainability.

“Shouldn’t we be working towards Africa not needing you? I understand what the system is. I’m not angry about it. I’m determined to change it,” she said.

“It is challenging because I do not look like the attractive saviour, the Australian woman selflessly helping Africa. But I am able to convince my people more. That’s representation at its core. They don’t need to know my story to think ‘if she can do it, I can do it’.”

After the Foundation was almost forced to close in lockdown, Aminata will address the National Press Club on Wednesday 25 May in a ‘Hail Mary’ for resources and funding.

“I sit in a place of getting the praise, but not the resources,” she said.

The topic of her address is ‘Restoring Dignity to Humanity.’

“With everything that happened to me during the war, I’ve not lost my dignity. I walk in a room, and I believe with my whole being that I belong there until I leave.

“But when I’m in Sierra Leone, I see women lying on a mat, on a plastic sheet and they cry. They’re always leaking, and I can just feel that part of humanity stripping away from them.

“I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve been raped, I’ve been starved during the war, and I didn’t lose my dignity, but when a human being feels less and unseen, it reaps every air from them until they don’t even want to breathe,” Aminata said.

“Motherhood should mark a beginning and not an end. We bring life into this world. We bring presidents, prime ministers, and we bring you.“

“I want every millionaire, billionaire to know your life was created because of a woman. I want people to hear that. This address is not going to expand my life in any shape or form until the work is done.

“I’ve been speaking in Australia for over 17 years, telling my story to UN, raising awareness, but I can’t raise awareness anymore. We need resources.”

Despite the success the Maternal Foundation has found while running on fumes, the end is creeping up every day.

“We are in a very risky place right now. If we don’t get the support, five to 10 years from today we do not stand a chance. That breaks my heart to say, because I know we have done the work so beautifully, and I know I should not be saying that.

“We don’t need any strategy, we have all that done, but we need people to hear. We need sustainable giving.”

To give to the Aminata Maternal Foundation, visit aminatamaternalfoundation.org/donate/

Get all the latest Canberra news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle, competitions and more delivered straight to your inbox with the Canberra Daily Daily Newsletter. Sign up here.