Matthew Hamilton, MPH

“Planning Output-Based Aid Program in Uganda”

One of the private health facilities participating in the HealthyLife voucher program. This output-based aid (OBA) program contracted private clinics to provide testing and treatment for non-HIV STIs to voucher-bearing patients. This facility was located in Mbarara, Uganda town and run by the Family Planning Association of Uganda. Bixby Intern Matt Hamilton helped plan an evaluation of OBA programs.

A young girl, Bata, holds a sign advertising the free reproductive health services offered by Likhaan Center at the World Pop Day Reproductive Health Fair. Bixby Intern Heidi Tuason spent her summer with Likhaan as the Reproductive Health Research, Policy, & Advocacy intern, where she worked on various projects including: assisting in the collection and analysis of women’s stories of illegal and unsafe abortion and conducting interviews with community health workers, community leaders and Likhaan staff about reproductive health issues during regular site visits to communities. Photo By Heidi Tuason.

Bixby Intern Heidi Tuason is presenting on her internship

“Advocating for reproductive health in the Philippines”
Decemeber 12,
12-1pm
17 D University Hall

Bixby Intern Heidi Tuason spent her summer with Likhaan as the Reproductive Health Research, Policy, & Advocacy intern, where she worked on various projects including: assisting in the collection and analysis of women’s stories of illegal and unsafe abortion and conducting interviews with community health workers, community leaders and Likhaan staff about reproductive health issues during regular site visits to communities.

The awards will be presented December 4th, at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Other award winners:

Michelle Goldberg, an investigative journalist, will receive the Best Bookaward for her book The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. Her book explores the global battle over women’s reproductive rights, looking at the evolution of the conversation over the years.

Robert Engelmanof the Worldwatch Institute will be honored with the award for Best Article or Series of Articles for his article “Population & Sustainability,” which appeared in Scientific American. The article summarizes the current state of world population and its linkages to sustainability and climate change, while also discussing the likelihood of slowing global population growth.

The Associated Press will be awarded Best News Service for its news and analyses of events occurring around the world that can have an impact on the high fertility rate in some of the world’s poorest countries and the effects that the growing population can have on the environment.

The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) will receive the award for Best Online News Service for their blog “Optimum Population Trust News Watch.” The blog contains not only OPT’s press releases, but excerpts from news stories and links to those stories that are related to the causes, consequences, and remedies of population growth.

New Security Beat by the Environmental Change and Security Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars will be awarded Best Online Commentary for its posts on international population issues and their links to the environment, international development, foreign policy, and peace and conflict.

Earth Days will receive the award for Best Film or Miniseries. The film looks at the history of the environmental movement from its early post war beginnings in the 1950s to the publication of Silent Spring to the first Earth Day in 1970 and the action that followed. The film pays special attention to the early links between the environmental and population movements.

The Local Government Chairman, an editorial cartoon in the Nigerian Observernewspaper by Francis Umendu Odupute, will be honored with the award for Best Editorial Cartoon. This cartoon depicts the struggle Nigeria has had in getting political leaders to acknowledge that population growth has had many significant consequences. This is especially important since Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa.

PBS’s To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe will be recognized as the Best TV Show. To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe devoted a special episode entirely to the history of the relationship between the environmental movement and population stabilization, beginning with environmental groups embracing population stabilization as a goal on the first Earth Day, through to what has led many groups to drop the issue completely.

EarthSky: A Clear Voice for Sciencewill receive the award for Best Radio Show for their series of weekly interviews with scientists around the world. Their interviews have included a series of interviews with population experts addressing a range of population related issues.

Neighbors, a radio serial drama focusing on population and family planning in Uganda, will receive the Best Serial Drama award. Neighbors is a short serial drama whose storyline illustrates the problems of having a large family and the advantages of a small planned family.

John Feeney will be honored with the Media Outreach Award for his contribution to educating the media and the public regarding population growth and its public policy implications through the Global Population Speakout.

For more information contact:
Jennie Wetter
Program Manager
The Population Institute
Phone: (202) 544-3300 ext 108
Fax: (202) 544-0068
E-mail: jwetter@populationinstitute.org

Kelvin Chan
“Scholarship with Ahmadu Bellow University”

This May through July, I had the privilege of working with a team of scholars at the Ahmadu Bellow University Teaching Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, henceforth referred to as ABUTH, in Zaria, Nigeria, under the auspices of the Population and Reproductive Health Partnership (PRHP), as a Bixby Fellow. In addition to training the ABUTH fellows in ethnographic research techniques, I was also helping them develop their own research by helping them refine their field notes so that they are in the position to write academic papers based on their field work. I also conducted my own field observations, with a special focus on the provision of obstetric and emergency obstetric care, at Kofan Gayan Hospital, the largest secondary hospital in Kaduna State. I will spend the bulk of this report describing my observations of the hospital, and how describe how the barriers – both internal and external to the organization – present a formidable situation that makes the provision of timely and effective healthcare services for all of its patients impossible.

Karen Weidart

“Saving Mother’s Lives in Zambia”

As a Bixby Summer Intern, Karen worked in collaboration with Venture Strategies for Health and Development (VSHD) and the Ministry of Health Zambia to monitor the implementation of the Zambia Misoprostol Pilot Project. The goal of the Zambia Misoprostol Pilot Project is to save mothers’ lives by preventing post partum hemorrhaging at home births with misoprostol tablets for women who are unable to reach a facility to deliver. 

Bixby intern Karen Weidert dancing and singing with women after concluding the misoprostol education session during antenatal clinic at rural health center.

In just three months in Zambia, Karen traveled to five districts and twenty rural health centers where the project was being piloted, meeting with many providers, community members and women benefitting from the misoprostol.  In her role, Karen worked closely with the National Program Coordinator to identify challenges in the project’s implementation, retraining providers and staff as needed, while creating sustainable tools and systems to improve the distribution and documentation of misoprostol by antenatal care providers in rural health centers. Karen monitored data collection and reporting from each site, establishing a consistent flow of data, training a research assistant to complete the data entry upon her departure.  Most importantly, Karen saw the incredible impact and future potential of this project firsthand and even though she is now back in Berkeley, Karen remains committed to project, which will conclude in December 2009.

Alisun Chopel, MPH

“Birth in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico”

A Tarahumara woman shows me where the baby in her arms was born: on the dirt floor of her house- typical of the ranchos, there is no electricity or convenient water source.

Hiking down into and up out of a canyon wider and deeper than the grand canyon, buying scorpion spray just in case, and acting as birth coach to a young woman I had just met, were all part of my journey to assess the need for a One HEART (onehearttibet.org) project to prevent maternal mortality 
through birth education and supplies distribution.

A Tarahumara woman shows me where the baby in her arms was born: on the dirt floor of her house- typical of the ranchos, there is no electricity or convenient water source.

Thanks to Bixby funding, my son and I were able to spend the summer with the indigenous people known to outsiders as the Tarahumara, in the Copper Canyon area of Chihuahua, Mexico.

During the day, we walked hours between isolated ranches and cave homes to speak with women about their reproductive health needs, resources, practices and beliefs, and at night, I worked on translation of materials and data analysis. I met and connected with health leaders and indigenous community leaders between visits to dispersed rural communities.

Exhausted by the end of the summer, I brought my son home before going to Salt Lake City to attend a fundraiser for the program. They raised more money than ever before, but unfortunately due to escalating reports of violence in the state they are putting the project on hold. I am more than satisfied with my experience: I learned so much, brought attention to a hidden but pressing issue, and listened to women who weren’t used to being listened to.

Daniel Bohl stands with three traditional birth attendants who staff a nearby maternal health clinic. The birth attendants are respected members of their community and play the critical role of delivering misoprostol to the new mothers.

Daniel spent the summer in Bangladesh evaluating training and experience of traditional birth attendants participating in a field trial that investigates whether traditional birth attendants can conduct safer deliveries when provided with two medical interventions: Misoprostol, a drug to control postpartum hemorrhage, and an absorptive delivery mat, a tool used to measure postpartum hemorrhage and facilitate timely referral to a health facility.

Daniel Bohl and Arshadul Islam conduct a qualitative interview of a traditional birth attendant about her experiences with postpartum hemorrhage throughout her career.

Bohl, Daniel internship report

An ob/gyn of Talin hospital demonstrating how to open a condom package and prepare it for use. The group of ob/gyns, nurses and midwives in the room are attending the third day of a four-day family planning consultation training provided by ProjecNOVA

Karen Kayekjian, MPH
“Reproductive Health in Armenia”

As a Bixby intern in Armenia, Karen’s objective was to gain a better understanding of the context of reproductive health in the country in terms of policies and laws, relevant programs, projects and organizations, and the perceptions and practices of married men and women, mother in laws and ob/gyns.

Read Karen’s report here Karen Kayekjian

Alice interviewing a Health Extention Worker

Alice Cartwright, MPH
“Comparing the ability of two different levels of community health providers to provide injectable contraceptives”

Alice spent the summer of 2008 as a Bixby intern in Mekele, the capital city of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. The project  she worked on compares the ability of two different levels of community health providers to provide injectable contraceptives (DMPA or Depo Provera) to rural women, and follows up on the safety and efficacy of the method, and satisfaction of the women between the two groups.

Read Alice’s report here Alice Cartwright