YEAR IN REVIEW
Famliy Medicine in Southeast Asia: Expanding into Myanmar GHETS by the Numbers: Partnerships for Global Impact
Women and Health Task Force: A Network of Advocates PROSSTRAB: A Model for Occupational Health Reform
2015
Dear GHETS Family and Friends, Thank you for taking the time to read our 2015 newsletter. As you will see in the pages to come, GHETS has been facilitating many innovative and impactful programs throughout the world. This year marked the beginning of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which ushered a new global perspective on aid. The emphasis on sustainable partnerships, which the SDGs clearly highlight, is the ethos of GHETS. Through vivid South-South collaborations, we aim to maximize our partners’ networking opportunities and bring them all to the table to discuss common goals and best practices to achieve them. Together with our partners, we strive to redefine health. We focus on funding projects that use local solutions to address broader social determinates such as education, gender equality, and nutrition that have a direct impact on overall community prosperity. We remain committed to our belief that local knowledge paves the way for global health equity. We are so thankful to be part of a network of leaders in global health and we greatly value the inspiration of each of our partners. We invite you to support our partners by contributing to their work and joining our effort to create sustainable global partnerships. May you always prosper and have much joy. In Solidarity,
David Egilman
Mary Guirguis
Meghan Kennedy
SOUTHEAST ASIA
GHETS / Boston University Global Health Collaborative
By: Maja Carrion and Kristin Shaw GHETS has partnered with Boston University to develop family medicine training programs in Southeast Asia. BU and GHETS have collaborated to leverage $130 million in World Bank
Myanmar
Cambodia
Vietnam
funding and to create connections to other GHETS program partners in order to advance family medicine as the basis of a healthy community health system.
Our newest project in Myanmar is off to an exciting start with a Teaching of Faculty training course for over 20 primary care doctors in Yangon. The three month course is delivered by an in-country faculty advisor as well as local members of our project. It focuses on competencies such as curriculum development, teaching methods, and evaluation design. The doctors will use their new teaching skills and experience to deliver continuing medical education courses as well as help to train medical students in their outpatient clinics. Throughout the year, our team has been working hard with the University of Health Sciences (UHS) in Phnom Penh to review their current year 7 and 8 curriculum for medical students. The work has spanned many months and included workshops delivered by BU GHC staff to create a competency-based curriculum followed by mapping of the current curriculum to the national guidelines. The work has been a collaboration between specialists in many different departments at UHS along with our BU GHC staff and has focused on primary care medical needs. We have continued to support the strengthening of primary care systems in Vietnam along with raising the profile of the family medicine specialty. This year we celebrated the opening of the first Family Medicine Center in Vietnam and have seen the results of many years of strong collaboration and partnership with Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy.
WOMEN AND HEALTH TASK FORCE
Innovations in Women’s Health: A Network of Advocates The Women and Health Task Force (WHTF) continues to make great accomplishments as a network of advocates for women’s rights and improvements in women’s health around the globe. In February, members of the WHTF management committee presented a plenary panel at the World Congress of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) where they were appointed as the new Work Group for the WFPHA on the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents. In September, WHTF representatives led an extremely important workshop on strategies to create safe environments for women students at university campuses at the Network: Towards Unity for Health Conference. They are also collaborating on the 3rd edition of the Women’s Health Learning Package, a comprehensive learning tool used at training institutions around the world, and mentoring new members to become future global health leaders.
Through GHETS funding, the following projects were awarded WHTF Mini Grants for 2015: Educating Women in Rural, Indian Villages about Sexual and Domestic Violence by utilizing Auxillary Nurse Midwives (ANM) and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA): Dr. Surekha Tayade, India Workshop to Promote Women’s Health by Students for Adolescents using the ABC of Women’s Health: A Handbook for Girls: Prof. Godwin Aja, Nigeria Promoting Early Screening and Treatment of Cervical Cancer amongst Women Living in a Slum of Kampala, Uganda: Faith Nawagi, Uganda Using Service Learning to Develop Social Responsibility Among Medical Students and Addressing Iron Deficiency Anaemia in Child Bearing Age Women and Adolescents in Rural Pakistan: Dr. Rukhsana Ayub Aslam, Pakistan
WHTF NEW MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Faith Nawagi of Uganda, WHTF Member Since 2014 and a 2015 Mini Grant Recipient I recently participated in the WHTF workshop in Gauteng, South Africa were I gave a presentation about my project, contributed and shared ideas with various members on women health issues around the world, and made resolutions on how to push the WHTF forward. The WHTF is a platform whose objectives I aim to contribute to as a new member by adding to the training modules, enhancing its visibility, writing posts about women’s health, and participating in project development and implementation.
HEALTH WORKFORCE ADVOCACY INITIATIVE As the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) completes its mandate by 2016, the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative (HWAI) has been discussing potential ways of sustainable impact. HWAI is an invaluable advocacy vehicle that seeks to empower members of the Global South to voice their concerns and requests for health systems reforms to their country’s leaders. Through a dynamic civil society agenda, HWAI aims to bring Human Resources for Health issues to the forefront of the
Sustainable Development Goals’ agenda for implementation and ensure that healthcare workers are being recognized, supported, and educated.
CONSAMS Helping Schools Develop Innovative
Community Based Health Interventions The Consortium of New Southern African Medical Schools (CONSAMS) has had a year filled with the rapid expansion of their network. At the General Meeting in June, they added two new schools, the Catholic University of Mozambique and Masinde Muliro University in Kenya. By adding Masinde Muliro, CONSAMS has ushered the first phase of expansion beyond Southern Africa. At the Network towards Unity for Health (TUFH) Conference this year in South Africa, GHETS facilitated important meetings to assist CONSAMS in their plan to widen their network of partnerships. CONSAMS board members met with GHETS partners from Boston University and from GlobeMed and very fruitful collaborations and potentials for CONSAMS students resulted from these meetings.
CONSAMS members will be focusing on Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) and Family Medicine in their curricula and will continue to offer students community based internships to provide support to local health efforts. Social and health interventions such as gender equality, water and sanitation, food security, and access to quality healthcare have a direct impact on health. CONSAMS continues to provide valuable exchange programs to students and faculty. There is an effort to expand these exchange programs beyond the CONSAMS network and extend globally in order to provide students with unique and enriching experiences. CONSAMS schools are also participating more actively in the Network TUFH and are gaining valuable experiences from Network
PROSSTRAB:
A Model for Occupational Health Reform in Latin America By Dr Belinda Forbes Promotion of Worker’s Health and Safety (PROSSTRAB for its acronym in Spanish) was founded in 2003 in Nicaragua and is one of the longest standing GHETS partnerships. This organization is a result of an effective partnership between The National Autonomous University in Leon (UNAN- León) and the Confederation of Union Workers Jose Benito Escobar (CST-JBE). PROSSTRAB is currently focusing on providing training and advocacy for occupational health; research and surveillance of occupational health conditions in Nicaragua; alliance-building, advocacy and communications with national and regional institutions to expand the reach of their programs; and completing an institutionalization process including legal recognition, administrative efficiency and development. Some of their latest achievements have been:
• Increased vocational training programs for more than 1000 workers, and Masters-level training of 50 primary care physicians and research opportunities for hundreds of medical science students on a national level. • Ensuring that organizing and training the structures are now mandated by the law, Councils of Occupational Hygiene in geographic departments of Nicaragua, mixed commissions of workers, managers, and owners of businesses and factories. • Participating as a key writer and promoter of a Worker Safety and Hygiene Law which passed in Nicaragua.
Intern Experience!
HANNAH COLLINS
PAULINE BAGATELAS
Interning at GHETS as the development and logistics intern was a fulfilling and enriching experience. I was able to gain first-hand experience at a nonprofit while learning about the unique GHETS approach to global health. Working at an organization with a sustainable approach to development has taught me invaluable knowledge and skills that I will apply to my future career.
I was the Rethink Aid Intern so I prepared for the launch of the campaign. I find it hard to believe that there exist many work environments as convivial as the GHETS office, which was key to my experience as through the interactions with others I was able to learn a lot about the diverse range of projects that GHETS has funded, and the behind the scenes work that follows from working with so many different partners all over the globe.
ELIZABETH ALVIN
RethinkAid.org
Interning with GHETS as the communications intern this summer was a great experience! I learned about the logistics of running a global health non-profit and all the work that goes on behind the scenes. It was an inspiring summer learning more about the global health field and all the incredible work that the GHETS partners do!
The Rethink Aid Campaign is an online platform that unites critiques of global health practice and links students and professionals around the globe to start conversations and share ideas. We aim to explore the state of global health aid, broaden our understanding of health, and prioritize community involvement, both globally and locally. Read more at rethinkaid.org.
Sustainable Development Goals In September 2015, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the continuation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These 17 goals have created a framework within which sustainable global change can happen and impact the health of developing countries. Here are some examples of how GHETS and our partners are already working within this framework:
SDG 1: End Poverty
SDG 3: Good Health and Well Being
GHETS provides seed funding for projects that are community based, driven entirely by their needs directly impacting overall
PROSSTRAB is working to achieve healthcare access for factory workers through mobile clinics and implementation of health labor laws.
SDG 4: Quality Education CONSAMS seeks to ensure medical students in newly formed medical schools are receiving the highest quality education.
SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals GHETS aims to bring our partners together to form broader networks as shown with this meeting between CONSAMS, Primafamed, and BU.
SDG 5: Gender Equality The WHTF works with communities to learn and account for women’s perspectives and mentors women to be future health leaders.
Global Health through Education, Training and Service (508) 226-5091 x15
info@ghets.org
www.ghets.org