One Year Later: The women of Haiti Cherie & an American feminist

For a while there it seemed as if most of the world had forgotten about Haiti (again). This week, by all indications from the news media, the ongoing tragedy has not been completely forgotten. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel discouraged when nearly half of the people I speak to about Haiti are sure that it was a hurricane that occurred last January (?!) or believe that Haiti is an island near Africa.

Immediately following the January 12 earthquake I began searching for volunteer opportunities, but quickly found that without a medical or emergency response background, few organizations were interested in taking advantage of my willingness to help. In May, however, I was finally invited to join an amazing group of nurses and doctors to volunteer at a medical clinic run by the organization Raising Haiti. In total, I have traveled to Haiti 3 times, working twice in a general medical clinic and once in a cholera treatment center. I return in 15 days (but who's counting).

There have been so many issues complicating the situation in Haiti this past year, but given my background as a passionate feminist and advocate for women's health & rights, I can't overlook how these circumstances will always disproportionately effect the women of Haiti. Women head nearly half of all households in Haiti, and face a constant threat of gender based violence (GBV).

Prior to chaos of 2010:

• An estimated 72% of girls have been raped
• 40% of women suffer from domestic violence.
• Contraceptive use is reported at a dismal 13.2% (including condoms)
• Pregnancy rates among school-age girls is approximately 3% - compare that to the US, which has the highest teen pregnancy rate of industrialized nations at 0.07%
• Abortion is illegal in Haiti - which leads many women to abandon education, enter into unsafe relationships, or seek risky illegal abortions
• Maternal mortality rates remain high, estimated at about 0.006% (compared to the US's relatively high rate of 0.00008%)
• Only approx. 26% of births in Haiti are assisted by a skilled birthing attendant

And this is all prior to the chaos which followed the earthquake which claimed the lives of over 300,000 people, and lead to increased civil unrest as well as a cholera epidemic whose death toll is approximated to be 2-4 times worse than the official reports of 3700.

But the Haitian people are warm, grateful and funny. They persevere in the face of insurmountable odds and great obstacles, always seeking to do what is best for their families, their community and their country. Every Haitian, whether living in Haiti or building a life in the expansive Haitian diaspora, knows the greatness which lies beneath the surface in Haiti. I've fallen in love in Haiti, in so many ways.

From a Campus Organizer who assisted in a impromptu pharmacy and monitored cholera patients:
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little" - Edmund Burke
[A quote which can be found on the legendary table of the MMRC HQ in Port-au-Prince.]

For more information on the women of Haiti:
We Advance: NGO in Haiti focusing on GBV and women's health
Kay Fanm: "House of Women" Haitian non-profit focusing on health & GBV in Haiti
Ms. Magazine: Please also check related posts for information on rape & GBV. Additionally the Winter 2011 issue of Ms. has a story dedicated to the women of Haiti.
UNFPA: UN Population Fund work on GBV and maternal health

Sources & information

Maternal Mortality in the Spotlight

The following post was submitted by guest blogger, recent UC Santa Cruz graduate, and Co-Director of e-health Nigeria, Evelyn Castle.

Reducing maternal mortality is finally being recognized as a cause worth supporting, with government officials and Hollywood stars rallying to bring an end to women's suffering around the world. The "Women Deliver" conference, which occurred in D.C. last month, and the Global Maternal Health Conference, which is scheduled for the end of August, have brought together world leaders to focus solely on this pressing issue. But what is really happening, on the ground, to reduce maternal mortality?

Last summer, I traveled to Nigeria, a country where 1 in 18 women die due to pregnancy related complications, to answer this question for myself. I wanted to see the causes of maternal mortality, what programs were being implemented to reduce it, and which of those programs were actually working. What I found was multiple organizations implementing maternal health projects, however not one of them had an effective way to measure health impact. Not having those statistics is a serious problem. Collecting statistical data may seem expensive, but it is much more expensive to mis-allocate resources because of bad data.

In order for the maternal mortality rate to decrease, information needs to be collected on maternal health in a way that can be used to allow government and NGOs to determine the effectiveness of their public health projects AND to help health professionals make better medical decisions for women.

Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) provide a tool to do just this. At a maternal health clinic in Nigeria, I implemented an EMR system and watched as the data that was collected helped health workers determine if a woman might have complications during pregnancy, and if it would be best for her to deliver at a hospital. I also witnessed the monthly medical report transform from a 2 week, inaccurate guess to a push-of-the button, precise analysis of the clinic’s history.

After returning home to UC Santa Cruz, I created eHealth Nigeria, which supports the management of health facilities in Nigeria to influence health-related funding and policy decisions, and provides doctors with the patient information needed to improve decision-making before, during, and after care. My partner and I spent the last 9 months improving the EMR system, researching other EMR projects, and fundraising in order to return to Nigeria and work with NGOs to implement EMR systems in more hospitals and clinics.

I am currently blogging from Nigeria and will be here for the next 6 months continuing my work. While I am here, I will also have the opportunity to meet with feminist Nigerian leaders, reproductive health workers, and women government officials.

Maternal mortality is not an issue that should only be spoken about in conferences and meetings. These are real women dying and people need to understand what is actually happening on the ground. I hope my blog can help show the struggles that women must endure and encourage you to get involved. Please contact me at my blog with questions/blog ideas/comments.

Empowering Women and Addressing Climate Change: Solutions for Ethiopia

The following post was submitted by guest blogger, Cassie Gardener

Like many developing countries, Ethiopia suffers from vast reproductive health challenges that are linked to a vicious cycle of poverty and gender inequality. 35% of women want to prevent or space their births, but don’t have access to family planning services and information, and only 10% of births are attended by skilled personnel.

What is more, these challenges will only be exacerbated by climate change impacts. As resources dry up, women and girls will have to walk farther to collect fuel wood, water and food, and the increased spread of diseases like malaria will make it even harder for people living in poverty to get ahead. Although they’re the least responsible for growing CO2 emissions, it’s the world’s poorest—women and girls—that will bear the brunt of the impacts.

As part of my two-month internship with the Population, Health and Environment (PHE) -Ethiopia Consortium, I recently had the opportunity to visit rural communities in the Bale Mountains of southeast Ethiopia, to witness not only these challenges, but what young women are doing to take action.

The little-known Bale Mountains are national and global treasures of biodiversity, teeming with dozens of endemic mammal, bird, and plant species. The rivers and streams in the Bale watershed flow to more than 12 million people in southern Ethiopia and western Somalia. As in many parts of the country, rural communities in Bale face grave livelihood and health challenges, and their unsustainable use of land to eke out a living is threatening long-term conservation efforts. Due to diminishing agricultural land and an average total fertility rate of 6.2 children per mother in the region, people are increasingly forced to cut trees for fuel and timber in order to feed and house their families.

PHE-Ethiopia’s member organization, MELCA, has been working to protect the region’s biodiversity and culture since 2005. Project Manager Tesfaye Teshome told me that if deforestation and impending climate change dry up Bale’s precious watershed, drought and famine could lead to the displacement or death of millions of Ethiopian citizens.

In March 2008, with funding from Engender Health and the Packard Foundation, MELCA launched an integrated population, health and environment (PHE) project that provides culturally sensitive training at the community, school, and government levels. I was impressed that after just seven months of raising awareness, I met dozens of community members who strongly believe in the benefits of family planning and girls’ empowerment for improving livelihoods and building local resistance to climate change impacts.


For example, I visited Finchaa Banoo Elementary School, where MELCA’s training sessions inspired the nature clubs, women’s clubs, and anti-AIDS clubs joined together to form new “PHE Clubs.” Hundreds of students greeted me with a PHE song, wearing traditional costumes with PHE banners strewn across their chests. Two female club leaders named Fatiye and Rose led me to their nursery site where their club had planted 60,000 indigenous tree seedlings for distribution to the community.

Fatiye, a 21-year old PHE club leader in 8th grade, proudly told me how their club uses dramas, songs and poems to educate their peers and community members about the importance of family planning. She said, “Before the coming of PHE, I knew only about biodiversity and culture. But now, I clearly understand health and population issues, including HIV/AIDS, taught to me by my peers. By having the integration of clubs, we’ve strengthened our power to accomplish more.” She told me that she will use family planning when she’s ready, and has even convinced her grandmother to use a fuel-saving stove, to improve her health and protect the environment.

I am so inspired to know that despite the vast challenges they face, women and girls in the Bale zone of Southeastern Ethiopia are working together to ensure a healthier, greener and more prosperous future for their community, and all Ethiopians!

For more information about PHE-Ethiopia, please contact phe-ethiopia@gmail.com or visit their website at http://www.phe-ethiopia.org. For more information about MELCA, please contact melca@ethionet.et or visit their website at http://www.melca-ethiopia.org.

Join Us For A Very Special International Women's Day Webinar!

Did you know that 1 woman dies every minute of everyday due to complications with pregnancy and childbirth? Did you know that 99% of maternal deaths take place in the developing world? Did you know that maternal mortality is the leading cause of death for girls between the ages of 15-19 in poorer countries?

Reading these statistics places a hugely different perspective on the issue of maternal mortality and morbidity around the world. When we hear these numbers, we generally imagine rural women from central Africa or from south Asia. Rarely do we picture that these women are also young teens forced into adulthood faster than they can recite lyrics from a famous poem or learn parts of the human anatomy.

These young women find themselves trapped in the shadows of a, often times, broken society struggling to survive in the midst of a suffering economy, lack basic living necessities, a healthcare system in disarray, limited to no access to an education, and a continuation of traditional and cultural practices that greatly impact the health and well-being of mostly women and girls.

In previous posts from this year's January and February eZine issues, Val and I discussed the urgency for the U.S. to do its part in the reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity in the developing world, and holding itself and other donor countries accountable for fulfilling the promises made at the Cairo Conference of 1994 and the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goal #5 (MDGs).

That is why in commemorating March 8, International Women's Day, the FMF team is calling for young feminists across the country to join in on a very special FREE webinar to learn about this crisis affecting half the world's population and how YOU can help save the lives of millions of young women and girls across the globe.

At 7:00pm EST, you will have the opportunity to listen and dialogue with Feminist Majority Foundation President, Eleanor Smeal, our Global Programs Coordinator, Anushay Hossain, and me, your friendly National Campus Organizer. Please don't miss out on a wonderful discussion!

We have limited reserved spaces and we encourage you to RSVP as soon as possible! Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity!

For more information, go to our website at www.feministcampus.org or contact your campus organizer at 1-866-444-3652 or campusteam@feminist.org.

Also, if you think you would benefit greatly from conversations like this one, then you'll want to take part in our upcoming National Young Feminist Leadership Conference on March 20 -21, hosted by the University of the District of Columbia in Washington D.C. Come and network with hundreds of young feminists across the country and notable speakers that range from heads of progressive women's organizations to members of Congress.

Get informed, get energized, GET ACTIVE!!!

Happy Women's History Month and International Women's Day!!!

This article was featured in our March 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine.

Maintaining Momentum: Shaping Global Reproductive Health Campaigns Post V-Day Events

For the month of February, many feminist groups work hard to put together V-Day events and productions of the Vagina Monologues. These are examples of cultural feminism on campus that can really bring critical issues to light and open important feminist conversations on campus about the oppression women face and the damaging implications of patriarchy. They awaken people to those realities and get them fired up.

But now it's March, and following the V-Day events, we hear from numerous student groups that they run into difficulty capitalizing on the momentum that V-Day can generate. Here at FMF, we've found that a really great way to catapult your group's activism into the stratosphere is through transforming that energy toward a campaign with political ramifications.

An example of a simple way to do this is to plan an event or initiative on campus for global women's reproductive health in the next few weeks. We've got some great campaign materials, and an upcoming webinar, that can help you! Because V-Day has a global focus and often global philanthrophy, it can be nice to follow that up with similarly themed activities to propel your group forward.

The key with this type of campaign is to refine the conversation. With something like V-Day, you've expanded your audience into the community and sparked their interest.

For organizers, the task remains to shift from a presentation of how things ARE for women at home and around the world, to a discussion of a student's role in affecting change for those very women. Armed with both renewed passion and enthusiasm AND the tools to really make a difference, your feminist group will benefit from the arrival of a crop of fantastic feminist activists.

Here's a Step by Step:

1) Select a focus for your campaign - maternal mortality, CEDAW, and International Family Planning are all good examples of some broad-reaching political campaigns that can bring some weight to what you're doing on campus.

2) Gather resources - Contact your Campus Organizer, and we can help! We also have some resources we could send your way - fact sheets, DVDs, and toolkits that could help you get started.

3) Call in backup - the cast, crew, and supporters of your V-Day events obviously care about feminism, so bring them back out! Get them involved and give them responsibilities so that they're invested in your campaign, too.

4) Design an Action Component - in addition to raising awareness, you should provide a mechanism for students to take action. Involve decisionmakers as best you can; either through call-in days to the Hill or district offices, letter writing, petitions, or visits. You could think big, too, and plan rallies and demonstrations.

5) Get press or media coverage - To add another level of pressure, place op-eds or letters to the editor, or get feminist press members to cover what you're doing in both campus and community outlets.

6) Kick off your campaign! - Ready, Set, Go! Launch on campus with a bang. Advertise and get started. At every event, be SURE to include that action component - it's what will set your events apart and make students keep coming back.

These are some of the basics, but if you have any questions, definitely get in touch with your campus organizer or email us at campusteam@feminist.org and we'd be happy to help you plan a Global Reproductive Health and Rights or similar campaign on your campus.

This article was featured in our March 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine.

Breast Cancer: Not Just the Problem of Rich Countries Anymore

Whenever I see fundraisers for breast cancer, like breast cancer walks and "Buy Pink" products, I tend to get a little case of "fundraiser jealousy". For much of my undergraduate degree, I've studied extreme poverty, and the diseases, humans rights violations, and the opportunity deprivations associated with it.

Preventable diseases--like malaria and dysentry--are some of the biggest killers in Developing nations [a term which some scholars dispute because it implies that those countries are, in fact, developing, instead of the more accurate portrayal that they are being mired deeper in poverty].

Maternal Death claims approximately 536,00 women a year (99 percent of which occur in Developing nations), and most of the deaths are also completely preventable. (And of course, this number doesn't include the annual70,000 unsafe abortion deaths that mainly result from the criminalization of abortion.) I thought about breast cancer as a "rich nation's disease," and begrudginly glared at "pink products" wondering if they were made in sweatshops that expose women to dangerous cancer-causing chemicals.

Recent studies, however, show that breast cancer is on the rise in developing nations (my first thoughts: That means their life expectancies are increasing to the point that they can get old enough to develop breast cancer!)--and that breast cancer affects women in developing nations about 10 years earlier than in industrialized nations (Shoot! I guess not. *runs in corner and cries.* )

What makes matters worse is that approximately two thirds of women are not diagnosed until the cancer has spread. Apparently there's a stigma attached to breast cancer; women are reluctant to get tested because they fear that if they lost a breast, their husband would leave them--which would force them into a situation of deeper poverty. (If that sounds like a nasty thing that could only happen "somewhere else," I'm afraid I have to refer you to Salon.com's article Sex without Nipples in which that theory is sorely refuted.) Estimates say that developing countries will experience a 36 percent increase in breast cancer by 2020, and that 55 percent of the world's expected breast cancer deaths this year will occur in developing countries.

So. Turns out breast cancer is not just a "Rich Nation's problem." My personal misguided theories are hereby flung out the window, and maybe my fundraising jealousy will subside. Talks are even beginning about starting an international task force that will develop methods to detect breast cancer earlier (through training midwives to detect breast cancer) and negotiate lower prices for generic chemotherapy. Whether or not these efforts meet with success is testy--they're sure to meet with opposition from governments, currently installed health professionals who have biases against midwives, and cultural norms.

Whether or not the cure for breast cancer, once discovered, would be shared with women in developing countries is a question we'll have to face once we get there. Considering our record in helping out developing nations with their preventable deaths, however, I'm not too optimistic.

Photo Credit: The Mayor of Worldwide Breast Cancer on flickr.com

Midwives make huge difference

The Feminist Majority Foundation has worked for years to help Afghan women on the issues that are important to them. Those include increasing girls' access to education, supporting women's groups in Afghanistan, and promoting women's health and security.

Maternal mortality is shockingly high in Afghanistan, and is certainly one of the biggest issues facing women in that country. One of the ways to help Afghan women receive safe maternal healthcare is to train women to be midwives. CNN has an article today about just how needed and effective it is to have women helping other women.

Healthcare is lacking in many regions, and according to the article, many men refuse to have their wives see male physicians for cultural reasons. Having midwives not only solves that issue, but it also provides women with a valuable job in their society.

Trained midwives are helping pregnant women who face numerous difficulties survive. If we want to decrease the devastatingly high maternal mortality rates in the world, one answer lies in training women in communities to be midwives. If you're looking for a valuable way to help women survive and live safer lives in Afghanistan, you should check out FMF's Afghan Women's Health Campaign.

Photo courtesy of www.flickr/advocacy_project

Dealing with the Aftermath of Maternal Mortality

One of the biggest issues facing women globally is maternal mortality. The New York Times has had a three part series on death in Tanzania, and has focused on maternal morality. Their first piece was about death in childbirth, and the second was about the high rates of unsafe abortions in the country. Their final piece is about the thousands of children who are orphaned and how one orphanage is trying to help these children.

According to the article, very little is known about orphan care and how poor nations are dealing with the large numbers of children whose mothers die in childbirth or due to botched abortions. Fathers cannot provide the nourishment an infant needs, and so the baby is often sent off to orphanages.

In the majority of orphanages, children can wait for years for someone to come and adopt them, which does not provide them with the emotional stability and care that is provided by a family. Research has shown that children who do not recieve enough physical touching or care form attachment problems.

In the orphanage in Berega, they want to do more than just provide their children with physical nourishment, so the children are cared for by teenage girls until they are old enough to be sent to their families. While this orphanage offers a solution for helping the millions of children who are motherless and stuggling to survive, there needs to be more work done to prevent maternal mortality.

The issue of maternal mortality is not only devastating to the women and families in the developing world, but it also undermines other international development efforts.

Day One of the Green-Pink Regional Training Conference Inspires Activism

Last Friday, FMF and Ms. interns, along with about 20 feminist and environmental activists from across the Western states, participated in the Green-Pink Regional Leadership Training conference on Reproductive Rights and Health and the Environment, co-sponsored by FMF, the Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. The fusion of these three powerful groups resulted in a conference that was both informative and inspirational.

The first day of the conference served as an opportunity for FMF and the Sierra Club to explore the ways in which the issues of environmental responsibility and women's empowerment are inter-related, through info sessions as well as fun activities. In particular, the Global Reproductive Health and the Environment session outlined the connection between women's empowerment and ability to access and afford family planning, and environmental issues as they relate to overconsumption and population growth.

One issue that really sparked our interest was the impact that access to clean water (or lack thereof), has on women. We also learned some startling facts about the fate of women in Afghanistan. 1 in 6 Afghan women will die during childbirth and many more will suffer from obstetric fistula, which is an easily repaired medical condition, and results due to lack of access to medical care and skilled attendance during childbirth.

To give you a glimpse of some more of the shocking statistics and issues we discussed, consider the facts that:

- 200 million women around the world want to access family planning services, don't have them.
- Education is the single most important factor in determining how many children a woman will have.
- In democratic societies around the world, women only comprise 18% of parliamentary seats.

The list of depressing realities went on and on, but by examining these truths and injustices we were able to see that women's empowerment - through education, household bargaining power, political power, equal wages, employment opportunities, equal access to health care and nutrition, ability to access family planning despite financial or sociological barriers, and equal representation under the law - is absolutely crucial to changing the fate of the world!

After hearing about the reality of the problems facing women and the environment, we were all eager to discuss some solutions. The West Coast FMF interns took the stage as we presented our research on the United Nation's Milennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were agreed upon by 189 nations in 2000 to develop efforts to combat poverty, hunger, discrimination and more. They truly consider issues of gender and the environment in all of their approaches. Unfortunatley, in our research, we discovered that while some progress has been made, more must be done to ensure that the lives of women have dramatically improved by 2015.

Throughout the day we also came across the fact that the U.S., the richest nation in the world, has consistently fallen behind on its promise to commit, at the bare minimum, .7% of its Gross National Income to international family planning funding. We must urge the U.S. to uphold its promises to the women of the world!

Cassie Gardener of the Sierra Club encouraged us to host a Green-Pink Party. This event raises awareness of the inter-relations of women's empowerment and environmental issues while raising $300 to pay for the life-saving surgery for a woman with obstetric fistula.

To conclude the day, Allie McDonald, FMF National Campus Organizer, and Cassie discussed how we can form effective campus organizations to address these issues. This was an opportunity for those who've been involved with campus activism to share helpful advice and ideas, and for those who want to launch a new group to learn the tricks of the trade.

Overall, day one of the conference was an excellent opportunity to discuss important issues with fellow social justice activists. In addition to learning more about these problems, we were inspired to implement solutions on our campuses and communities.

-Danae Garfield, FMF Campus Intern & Hastings College student

Photo: FMF interns Bonarene Wakam and Mary Kwan make their way through the "Barriers to Family Planning" obstacle course.