Pakistan
Production Grant for Photographers from Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan
The Open Society Documentary Photography Project and Arts and Culture Program announce a grant and training opportunity for documentary photographers from Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan. Both emerging and well-established photographers are eligible to apply. The grant will begin in November 2012 and end in June 2013.
The grant is being offered to:
- visually document issues of importance in the region; and
- provide training and support to photographers from the region.
Ulama Agents for Social Change: Muslim Scholars Speak for Mothers Rights
This study identifies ulama, Muslim legal scholars, as an important communication channel in Pakistan for promoting positive behaviours through message delivery at their mosques and seminaries. In the Islamic religion, ulama are often consulted by their community members for a range of issues, including those that relate to issues of health and well-being, making them an important link to men on the subject of women's health, including mother, newborn, and child health (MNCH).
PAIMAN Publications on the USAID website, December 2 2010.
Voices from the Ground
From Panos London, this blog follows the lives of five people working and living in developing countries, tracking their experiences in relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Voices from the Ground, December 1 2010 is an online platform for recording the challenges, frustrations, and successes of people affected first-hand by the impacts of the MDGs. Their experiences are recorded by Panos London local journalists in those countries who tell those experiences as first person. The bloggers' stories are told as they happen and feature people from around the world:
- Northeast India: Takhelchangbam Ambravati (known as Ambra) is a grassroots volunteer with a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) near Imphal, the capital of the northeastern state of Manipur. She visits local women to collect information about human rights violations, domestic violence, and trafficking.
- Pakistan: Zubaida Noor is working with women in a small village in Khyber Putkunkwa, previously known as North-West Frontier Province, who lost their homes in the recent floods. Her NGO, the Noor Foundation, focuses on women's education, health, and emancipation.
- Jamaica: Dr Tracy Evans-Gilbert is head of the paediatric HIV programme at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, Montego Bay's main public hospital. Part of her job is to trace HIV-infected children who are not receiving treatment and babies with unknown status born to HIV-infected women.
- Mali: As a housewife in the village of Tamala in the south of Mali, Sali Samaké has to fetch water every day to do the cooking and washing for her family. She is also one of thousands of small farmers trained by the Malian government to monitor rainfall.
- Brazil: Dagmar Rivieri Garroux, known as Tia Dag (Auntie Dag), runs Casa do Zezinho, a school in one of south Sao Paulo's favelas. By offering social, cultural, and artistic activities for children, Tia Dag and the teachers aim to prevent them from joining Sao Paulo's criminal gangs.
Children, Economic Development, Education, Gender Equity, Maternal Health, HIV/AIDS, Health, Environment.
Email from Tia Jeewa to The Communication Initiative on October 15 2010; and Voices from the Ground blog, December 1 2010. Image credit: Sanjit Das / Panos Pictures
In Pakistan's Swat Valley, Health Workers Reach out to Women and Children Already Struggling
This article describes social mobilisation activities for "Mother and Child Days" and other health and vaccination campaigns that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is conducting with non-gov
Global Health TV, October 29 2010. Image credit: © UNICEF Pakistan/2010/Dhayi
Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity: A Study on the Mobile Phone Gender Gap in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
This study from the GSMA Development Fund, the Cherie Blair Foundation, and Vital Wave Consulting analyses data, surveys, a market sizing model, and expert interviews to report on mobile phone use
Global Health Weekly Update, October 12 2010.
Will Rahima's Firstborn Survive Overwhelming Odds? Positive Deviance for Maternal and Newborn Care in Pakistan
From the Positive Deviance Wisdom Series (Number 5), a collaborative venture of the Positive Deviance Initiative at Tufts University (Boston, Massachusetts, United States) and the
Emails from Arvind Singhal to The Communication Initiative on June 7 2010 and July 19 2010.
Internet, Schoolchildren and Rural Pakistan: How to Get Community Buy-in Including for Girls
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
This Association for Progressive Communications (APC) news article explores a project called Dareecha (meaning "window"), w
Email from Lisa Cyr to The Communication Initiative on April 29 2010; and APC website, May 19 2010.
Health Communication: Polio Lessons
According to the articles in this Journal of Health Communication supplement, the polio eradication experience provides a rich source of health communication knowledge. And yet, it is one that remains relatively unexamined. The papers in this supplement take a small step towards drawing out some of the lessons and looking at what these experiences have to say to the wider field of health communication. They focus on a series of tensions and the manner in which the polio programme has dealt with them.
Tensions like:
Family Advancement for Life and Health (FALAH)
Launched in June 2007, FALAH is a 5-year undertaking to increase the use of family planning (FP) and birth spacing by removing barriers to services and improving knowledge in 20 districts of Pakistan'
Mapping and research have been at the centre of FALAH's communication advocacy and mobilisation strategy. The Population Council and 6 partners prepared and approved a compliance monitoring plan after receiving training by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) consultants. A baseline survey was completed in 16 districts for comparison at the end of the project, and all public and private health care facilities were mapped in 18 districts. Methodology and messages were developed for mobilisation of married women of reproductive age and their husbands and health providers. For example, a poster was finalised and translated into Urdu (translation in Sindhi to be completed) that details the Tiahrt Requirements for Voluntary Family Planning Projects. (Editor's note: In October 1998, the US Congress enacted an amendment initiated by Representative Todd Tiahrt (a Republican from the state of Kansas) reaffirming and elaborating standards for voluntary FP service delivery projects to protect the rights of FP "acceptors," that is, the individual clients receiving services. Click here to learn more).
Interpersonal interactions are at the centre of this effort to educate and motivate Pakistan's people around FP and birth spacing issues. FALAH collaborator Greenstar Social Marketing (GSM) has held neighbourhood meetings to provide FP orientation, mobilised community outreach by conducting meeting with male and female "influencers", and dispatched its outreach workers to carry out household visits to reach women. In addition, women of reproductive age are provided with free FP consultations at 1,178 mobile clinics (Clinic Sahoolat) conducted by GSM.
Capacity-building efforts have involved training of staff in compliance monitoring, healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy, and contraceptive updates. FAHAL also developed a preservice curriculum for medical and paramedic students, which was approved in principle by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, and basic and advanced training manuals for client-centred FP services. Skill development training was developed for the intrauterine device (IUD), trainings of trainers (ToTs) for client-centred FP services have been held, and leadership trainings have been conducted.
FALAH has also conducted advocacy work on emergency contraception (EC). This has involved officials from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Population Welfare visiting Bangladesh to observe their programme of EC distribution through community workers. FALAH organised a national consultation seminar for consensus-building around EC, prepared EC training manuals, and held a consultative meeting with provincial coordinators to finalise their training materials. The technical committee of innovations has approved FALAH's proposed provision of EC through lady health workers in 8 districts.
Family Planning.
Population Council, GSM, Health and Nutrition Development Society, Jhpiego (Johns Hopkins University), Mercy Corps, Rural Support Programmes Network, and Save the Children. Funded by USAID.
FALAH page on the Population Council website and USAID website - both accessed February 11 2010.
Executive Summary: Independent Evaluation of Major Barriers to Interrupting Poliovirus Transmission
This 16-page Executive Summary offers an overview of an independent, external evaluation of the Global Poliomyelitis Eradication Initiative (GPEI).
WHO Polio website, accessed December 16 2009. Image credit: WHO
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