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By And For Women: Involving Women In The Development Of Reproductive Health Care Materials, Valerie J. Hull, Barbara L. Ibrahim, Nadia Farah, Blanca Figueroa, Margaret Winn Jan 1992

By And For Women: Involving Women In The Development Of Reproductive Health Care Materials, Valerie J. Hull, Barbara L. Ibrahim, Nadia Farah, Blanca Figueroa, Margaret Winn

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The studies in this issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité describe three efforts to involve women in the development of reproductive health care materials in different settings in the developing world. In Cairo, a women's health collective produced a comprehensive reference book for women; in Peru, a woman's group, with the extensive involvement of their nonliterate audience, developed a series of illustrated teaching materials; and in the South Pacific, an all-woman production crew produced three motivation and teaching videos developed in response to the expressed needs of Pacific Island women. Despite contrasts in the characteristics of the intended audiences, the development process, and …


Family Planning And Child Survival Programs As Assessed In 1991, John A. Ross, W. Parker Mauldin, Steven R. Green, E. Romana Cooke Jan 1992

Family Planning And Child Survival Programs As Assessed In 1991, John A. Ross, W. Parker Mauldin, Steven R. Green, E. Romana Cooke

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This volume continues a tradition initiated at the Population Council nearly 25 years ago when the first edition of “Population and Family Planning Programs” was issued. That factbook began a series of 12 editions produced through 1993. The data in that series were consolidated and updated in another publication, and the present volume is now issued, based partly upon a 1989 questionnaire inquiry to over 100 developing countries. A range of maternal and child survival data were added to the family planning information. The relationships among fertility behavior, infant and child mortality, and maternal health are closely interwoven; moreover, many …


Breaking New Ground: Reaching Out To Women Farmers In Western Zambia, Janice Jiggins, Paul Maimbo, Mary Masona Jan 1992

Breaking New Ground: Reaching Out To Women Farmers In Western Zambia, Janice Jiggins, Paul Maimbo, Mary Masona

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Over the last few decades, small-scale projects have been developed throughout Africa to help incorporate women farmers into the mainstream of agricultural extension services. This edition of SEEDS presents an interesting example from Zambia's Western Province—the Women's Extension Program, located within the Home Economics Section of the Department of Agriculture. This program is working to change a government agricultural bureaucracy from within by redefining mandates, encouraging attitude change through staff training, broadening village-level opportunities and perceptions, and widening technical and economic research agendas. The program’s experience emphasizes the importance of using a variety of approaches in order to effectively reach …


Handbook For Family Planning Operations Research Design, Andrew A. Fisher, John E. Laing, John E. Stoeckel, John Townsend Jan 1991

Handbook For Family Planning Operations Research Design, Andrew A. Fisher, John E. Laing, John E. Stoeckel, John Townsend

Reproductive Health

The Handbook for Family Planning Operations Research Design, first published in English by the Population Council in 1983, was based on field research studies in Asia. This second edition contains revised and expanded sections. Where appropriate, examples from Latin America and Africa have been added. The introductory section contains a current statement on the process of health and family planning operations research (OR). New chapters have been included on selecting an appropriate intervention to test in an OR study, and on describing the main elements of the study intervention. The chapter on information dissemination has been expanded and a new …


Prevention Of Morbidity And Mortality From Induced And Unsafe Abortion In Nigeria, Friday E. Okonofua, Toun Ilumoka Jan 1991

Prevention Of Morbidity And Mortality From Induced And Unsafe Abortion In Nigeria, Friday E. Okonofua, Toun Ilumoka

Reproductive Health

These proceedings are from a seminar organized by the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology, and Perinatology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Nigeria) in collaboration with the Population Council. The primary purpose of the multidisciplinary seminar was to identify the determinants of the high rate of mortality and morbidity from unsafe abortion in Nigeria. The specific objectives were: 1) to identify measures that could be undertaken on a short- and long-term basis to reduce the rate of abortion-related mortality, and 2) to set an agenda for research into abortion in Nigeria. The seminar consisted of oral presentations on related topics by researchers and …


Child Care: Meeting The Needs Of Working Mothers And Their Children, Caroline Arnold, Jorge Mejia, Aster Haregot, Ann Leonard, Cassie Landers Jan 1991

Child Care: Meeting The Needs Of Working Mothers And Their Children, Caroline Arnold, Jorge Mejia, Aster Haregot, Ann Leonard, Cassie Landers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS, developed in cooperation with the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, with support from UNICEF, seeks to bring together the critical elements of women's work and child care, reviewing the issues from three different perspectives: child care as a means of enabling women to work, as a source of employment for women, and as a way of meeting the developmental needs of young children. The report examines three different UNICEF-supported approaches to child care on three different continents—Asia (Nepal), Africa (Ethiopia), and South America (Ecuador)—that have been developed with the needs of working women …


The Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition, Bonnie J. Kay, Adrienne Germain, Maggie Bangser Jan 1991

The Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition, Bonnie J. Kay, Adrienne Germain, Maggie Bangser

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Bangladesh Women's Health Coalition (BWHC) represents an important initiative in the movement toward more responsive modes of family planning delivery. In the context of a society where there are strict limits on the social role and physical mobility of most girls and women, BWHC has set itself the ambitious goal of enabling women—no matter what their income or education—to learn how to manage their own reproductive health and the health of their children in a way that enhances their sense of strength and competence. One of the real strengths of BWHC has been its willingness to learn from experience …


Maternal Risk, Beverly Winikoff Jan 1991

Maternal Risk, Beverly Winikoff

Reproductive Health

This presentation to the 1991 Berzelius Symposium, Stockholm, Sweden, explores the issue of maternal risk—the probability or chance of dying or being seriously injured in pregnancy—as it is used in maternal health care. This concept of risk has been a useful tool for research and medical and epidemiological education, but its use as a tool for service delivery design has been more problematic. In order to construct a risk system, one has to have reliable data on the relationships between individual characteristics and the outcome being studied—something that is difficult to develop with regard to maternal health. Furthermore the system …


Limitations Of Maternal Care To Improve Maternal Health, Beverly Winikoff Jan 1991

Limitations Of Maternal Care To Improve Maternal Health, Beverly Winikoff

Reproductive Health

In a presentation at the 1991 Berzelius Symposium in Sweden, a Population Council researcher described the limitations of healthcare systems, specifically during pregnancy, in terms of their effect on maternal health status. These limitations stem from an inability to improve health because of social conditions—poverty and illiteracy, overwork, inequality in sexual relationships—that cannot be solved by medical interventions. Maternal ill health originates before pregnancy and endures beyond it, whereas the window of contact with women during pregnancy is small. Nevertheless, recent evaluations suggest that the impact of prenatal care is in the caring process more than any specific aspect of …


Man/Hombre/Homme: Meeting Male Reproductive Health Care Needs In Latin America, Debbie Rogow, Judith Bruce, Ann Leonard Jan 1990

Man/Hombre/Homme: Meeting Male Reproductive Health Care Needs In Latin America, Debbie Rogow, Judith Bruce, Ann Leonard

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of Quality/Calidad/Qualité answers the following question: how can family planning programs understand and better serve the interests of men? The proposals in the article are derived from the experience of PRO-PATER, in São Paulo, Brazil, and briefly, from the activities of the Profamilia Men’s Clinic in Colombia. The experiences of both PRO-PATER and Profamilia suggest that, although the reproductive health needs of men may be different from those of women, they are still very interested. It is clear that there is abundant demand for high-quality services that offer convenience, confidentiality, information, attentive providers, and attention to reproductive health …


The Muek-Lek Women's Dairy Project In Thailand, Aruna Rao Jan 1990

The Muek-Lek Women's Dairy Project In Thailand, Aruna Rao

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS describes a project that was started in 1985 to encourage the growth of a new agricultural sector, dairy farming, in Thailand. While the major aim of the project was to increase incomes of rural families in the Muek-Lek Land Reform Area in Saraburi Province, Central Thailand, it also sought to integrate women into dairying activities, and offer these women, whether married or single, access to credit. The Muek-Lek Dairy Project is unique in that it channeled government resources and secured commercial bank financing to make women the key participants in a relatively new and growing agricultural …


Celebrating Mother And Child On The Fortieth Day: The Sfax Tunisia Postpartum Program, Francine Coeytaux, Beverly Winikoff Jan 1989

Celebrating Mother And Child On The Fortieth Day: The Sfax Tunisia Postpartum Program, Francine Coeytaux, Beverly Winikoff

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of Quality/Calidad/Qualité gives information about a postnatal family planning program in the Sfax Center of the Tunisia Maternity and Newborns Hospital. This program, developed jointly by the national family planning program and the Maternity staff, has had extraordinary success in getting more mothers to return after six weeks for their postnatal visit. During the visit, the period between births is discussed; and family planning services are offered as an important means for achieving both the recovery and good health of the mother, as well as the physical and mental development of the infant. The report describes a few …


The Port Sudan Small Scale Enterprise Program, Eve Hall Jan 1988

The Port Sudan Small Scale Enterprise Program, Eve Hall

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Euro-Action ACORD (EAA) is a consortium of 20 European and Canadian aid agencies working in refugee farming settlements in Central and Southern Sudan, and with various rural development projects in other parts of Africa, which responded to a request from the Sudanese Commissioner of Refugees to work in Port Sudan. This was the first time the agency considered working with poor urban people, and staff were determined to understand the economic and social forces which governed life in the slums. The program noted a number of findings that will help determine its future: reaching out to women where they live …


Forest Conservation In Nepal: Encouraging Women's Participation, Augusta Molnar Jan 1987

Forest Conservation In Nepal: Encouraging Women's Participation, Augusta Molnar

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS focuses on ways in which women have been involved in a government forest conservation and restoration program in Nepal. As is common with many large-scale projects with a general impact, women were not a direct focus of the project's original design. As activities got underway, however, both the Nepali staff and their expatriate colleagues quickly realized that the direct involvement of women was crucial to the success of the project's participatory strategy. Over the initial five years, 1980 to 1985, a number of approaches to addressing women's needs and generating their active participation were tried. The …


The Women's Construction Collective: Building For The Future, Ruth Mcleod Jan 1986

The Women's Construction Collective: Building For The Future, Ruth Mcleod

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of SEEDS focuses on a project developed to integrate low-income women into Jamaica's construction industry. In two years, 34 women passed through the project's basic training and skills upgrading courses. More than 90 percent of these women became employed, the majority as masons and carpenters. The story of how this field was identified as a potential source of income for women, and how the project developed and evolved in response to changing circumstances, presents many useful lessons. These should be of particular interest to those seeking to identify employment areas where women's participation is feasible and in helping …


Developing Non-Craft Employment For Women In Bangladesh, Marty Chen Jan 1984

Developing Non-Craft Employment For Women In Bangladesh, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Too often when development planners or practitioners plan income-generating schemes for women they consider only handicrafts. While in some situations craft production may provide a secure source of income for women, in many cases it results in poor returns and proves more complicated an undertaking than expected. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is one agency that has developed a successful program of non-craft employment opportunities for women. Some 10,000 poor women have been engaged by BRAC in viable economic schemes: 9,000 in non-craft production. This issue of SEEDS reviews BRAC's experience in developing non-craft employment opportunities and participatory associations …


Community Management Of Waste Recycling: The Sirdo, Marianne Schmink Jan 1984

Community Management Of Waste Recycling: The Sirdo, Marianne Schmink

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

At the beginning of 1978, a group of families were awaiting access to low-cost housing in Mérida, a city on Mexico's southeastern coast. Some units were equipped with a new drainage system called SIRDO (Integrated System for Recycling Organic Wastes), and families interested in living in the experimental block where the SIRDO was to be installed could be given housing right away. Three years later, families in another community located in the crowded Valley of Mexico decided to try the system in their own neighborhood. Women have played a crucial role in learning to manage the technical, economic, and social …


The Working Women's Forum: Organizing For Credit And Change, Marty Chen Jan 1983

The Working Women's Forum: Organizing For Credit And Change, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDs tells the story of how the Working Women's Forum came into being in Madras, India and how it has brought together more than 13,000 poor, urban women around the issue of credit. It also describes how the Forum has not only provided its members with access to funds, but has expanded to include support services such as child care, education, health, and family planning and how the sense of strength and purpose that has grown up among the members is helping them to tackle the political and social problems that affect their lives.


Women And Handicrafts: Myth And Reality, Jasleen Dhamija Jan 1981

Women And Handicrafts: Myth And Reality, Jasleen Dhamija

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS reviews handicrafts as a means of providing income to women. In some instances, crafts are a solid source of income and can also provide women with a link to their own cultural heritage. In most instances, however, crafts production concentrates women in an area that is labor intensive and exploitative, providing a meager income for long hours of work. Handicrafts can be a means of increasing income for women in some settings, but only under the conditions outlined in this report, since crafts are specialized activities which have limited markets and offer limited potential as a …


Hanover Street: An Experiment To Train Women In Welding And Carpentry, Peggy Antrobus, Barbara Rogers Jan 1980

Hanover Street: An Experiment To Train Women In Welding And Carpentry, Peggy Antrobus, Barbara Rogers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Hanover Street Project, formally known as the United Women’s Woodworking and Welding Project, is an experiment in training women for jobs usually held only by men. Begun in 1976, this was the first such program of the Jamaica Women's Bureau, established by the government during International Women's Year to ensure that women participate fully in Jamaica’s development. The project demonstrated that low-income women can learn non-traditional skills and can work together to improve their lives. Through trial and error, the project is providing the Women's Bureau with a wealth of information about teaching technical skills, working with other government …


Village Women Organize: The Mraru Bus Service, Jill Kneerim Jan 1980

Village Women Organize: The Mraru Bus Service, Jill Kneerim

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Mraru Women's Group in rural Kenya, like many community women's organizations around the world, is an example of a deeply rooted tradition of association and self-help among women. In 1971 the group began to gather its resources to solve a common problem—transportation. They raised money, bought a bus, and began a public transport service that made money; they now face other difficult questions such as reinvesting profits, serving members' broader needs, and maintaining a strong economic base. The Mraru Women's Group has shown unusual creativity and persistence in identifying common needs and organizing to meet them. They have also …


Market Women's Cooperatives: Giving Women Credit, Judith Bruce Jan 1980

Market Women's Cooperatives: Giving Women Credit, Judith Bruce

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In 1972, the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development (Fundación Nicaraguense de Desarrollo—FUNDE), one of two programs sponsored by the Nicaraguan Institute of Development, became aware of market women's need for credit. This issue of SEEDS describes FUNDE's experience in developing savings and loan cooperatives to meet this need. This summary stresses the human aspects of the process as much as the financial and technical ones. The project has been successful because the cooperatives have built upon the existing market women's culture, utilizing all the subtle and complex interpersonal relationships established over the years. In essence what the cooperatives have done is …