|
Expanding Hope for a Better Future in Nepal   
Feb. 23, 2009 – Nepal is a beautiful country, famous for the highest mountain peaks in the world. The country also has high maternal mortality and morbidity ratios. A Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) conducted in 2006 found the maternal mortality ratio to be 281 per 100,000 live births. The good news is that it has decreased by almost half from a decade earlier.
Encouraging as this decrease is, women continue to die or suffer from medical conditions caused by complications during pregnancy and childbirth every day. An estimated 600,000 women in Nepal live with uterine prolapse, a condition that can be caused from inadequate birth spacing. The women of the Terai region, a mostly agricultural area along Nepal's southern border with India, are especially vulnerable to the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth. The Terai is home to 49 percent of the population and many of the poorest and most marginalized communities in Nepal. Many girls marry early and move in with their husbands and his family when they are 15 to 16 years old. Despite the fact that family planning is a cost-effective intervention for reducing maternal mortality, on average women in the Terai region are 25 years of age and have three children before they begin using contraception. CEDPA, in partnership with World Learning, has mobilized young volunteers to improve the health of women, girls and their families within the central Terai region by increasing access to modern family planning methods, enhancing the quality of family planning services, and helping to make the social and policy environment more receptive family planning and reproductive health.
The partnership’s Expanding Voluntary Use of Contraceptives in the Central Terai project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, is empowering young women and men to become facilitators for family planning information and resources within the Bara, Rautahat and Sarlahi districts. The project trains and engages community volunteers in the dissemination of reproductive health information and the distribution of family planning commodities. They, in turn, educate and empower their communities to make informed choices. There are two types of volunteers: Peer Health Educators and Family Future Supporters. Peer Health Educators are young men and women who are trained to lead discussions with their peers and to conduct household visits sharing information on reproductive health and family planning within their communities. To date, 813 Peer Health Educators have been trained and, along with their peers, have conducted visits to more than 3,000 households, reaching approximately 8,700 people. In conjunction, 27 Family Future Supporters have been trained in each district. They are responsible for providing family planning information and commodities – condoms and pills – to young married couples and new mothers at the doorstep and in local factories. These older volunteers also provide counsel to families of migrant workers on family planning and HIV/AIDS. Community members feel comfortable going to the volunteers with questions because they know them as family, friends and fellow community members. The Peer Health Educators and the Family Future Supporters open and maintain a dialogue about reproductive health and family planning where previously the subjects were never spoken about. CEDPA is working through projects like this to improve the lives of women, girls and their families in Nepal. Find out more about CEDPA’s projects in Nepal. |
|
