Hi there! Welcome to Little Green Lives.

My name is Sam and I’m the author of this site. I’m a passionate Mum, Midwife and green-living enthusiast. I created Little Green Lives to help busy mums live simpler, healthier and greener lives.

Living a healthy and eco-friendly lifestyle doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive or time-consuming. Little Green Lives is a place where you can come for tips, ideas and inspiration. I want to help you to make informed choices and choose what works best for your family without judgement! We’re all just busy mom’s trying to do our best.

Let's get to know each other.

Before we start this journey together I want to share something with you:

Our little love story

Have you ever experienced the feeling you should be doing something else? Even though it seemed impossible and the sacrifice would be immense? That was me. I even left paradise to do it.

Seven years ago I left a beautiful sun-drenched tropical island and the love of my life (or so I thought). I was heartbroken.

You know that chest-crushing feeling like you can’t breathe? That was me. It was a long flight from Honolulu for the poor guy who sat next to me as I cried almost endlessly all the way back to my home in London, England.

I made the unimaginable decision to leave the life of other people’s dreams: a life of relaxation and self-indulgence among nature’s most beautiful elements. I lived where tropical rainforests met turquoise waters alive with neon fish and green sea turtles.

Don’t get me wrong…I appreciated the beauty and the magical feeling of being in love. But as I sat on the white powdery beaches, I couldn’t help but find myself distracted by a desire to fulfil a lifelong dream.

Just days later I was back in London, my heart still raw, but my sadness tempered by excitement. I boarded another plane with only a backpack of possessions - Uganda bound.

After seven hours aboard another Boeing 747 (Heathrow to Kampala) followed by a long drive north to Gulu, my dream of working as a midwife with Doctors Without Borders / Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) was becoming reality.

I looked out the dusty windows in the back of a white Land Cruiser. My stomach churned. There were women carrying babies on their backs, bundles of firewood on their heads and worldly possessions in cloth bags. Naked children ran beside our car. Donkeys, goats and feral dogs wandered in desperate search of a meal.

Little green lives, our love story . MSF Cars

I was en-route to a large camp for internally displaced people near Gulu, to a hospital awaiting my skills and fellow team members awaiting my company.

“Welcome to Lalogi camp,” said a tanned, ruggedly handsome guy with an American accent. He offered me a hand as I climbed down from the truck. He wore a dirty, white MSF tee-shirt and a killer smile.

Excited, terrified and still heartbroken I gave that guy my hand and climbed down into a blur of 24-hour shifts in a hot, overcrowded maternity ward. I experienced the highs of saving lives, the lows and devastation of losing some. Every day I learned so much about life and humanity.

With fellow Ugandan midwives as my mentors and students we provided pre-natal care to thousands of women and delivered hundreds of beautiful babies. Side by side with my team we worked through the night by torchlight, because every woman’s experience and life was important.

Little green lives, our love story. Uganda maternity ward

So what about the “love of my life” ?

In the early weeks I was awaiting a call or email saying "come back to me, I made a mistake letting you leave, I love you." My heart ached for it.

It never came. Life went on.

It became easier. My heart filled with the most incredible joy and satisfaction I’d ever felt. It healed and I grew stronger than ever. I gave myself to my new life.

And this new life had other plans for me: that long haired guy who opened the back of the MSF Land Cruiser and offered me his hand as I stepped down, and held a torch for me while I saved lives in the middle of the night, is now the TRUE love of my life.

That guy is the man I eat my oatmeal with every morning now, Daddy to my three beautiful children.

Little green lives, our love story. J with Indi

We have travelled and worked together in other Doctors Without Borders projects. We've lived and worked in Congolese conflict zones and Nairobi slums, and in incredible India. We raced across Delhi chaos in a cab when I was in labour with our daughter. Together we've navigated parenthood these last four years.

You’d think a seven-year-journey, fulfilling a dream, experiencing birth with incredible women across the world would be some of the most challenging and exhilarating moments of my life…

But it’s becoming a mother that has been the hardest—yet most blissful—emotional roller coaster I’ve experienced.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

My experiences working with MSF just reconfirmed to me how precious life is. How fortunate we are to have clean water, a bed to sleep in and a safe home in which to raise our family. I feel a big responsibility to this beautiful world and want to do all that I can to protect it so that our children can enjoy its beauties during their lifetime. That’s why every day I strive to live a waste-less life, and do whatever I can to care for the environment—and teach my children to do the same.

The start of a new journey

So that’s why I’ve embarked on this new adventure: ‘Little Green Lives’ - a lifestyle blog with a hint of green.

Little Green Lives is the journey of our little family of five: committed to a greener lifestyle, a more minimalist existence, finding Quality in our day-to-day, and embracing our natural world with bare feet and dirty hands.

Here you’ll find inspiration and ideas that are achievable – for even the busiest mums who, like me, are determined to make informed lifestyle choices and aren’t afraid of a little adventure.

So excited that you're here.

Want to get to know us better come check out my About me page or follow us on Instagram.

Thanks for popping in

Sam