On Our Way

Rural villages like this one previously did not offer secondary classes,
now the Ministry of Education is offering secondary classes in 10 of
the 40 villages in my municipality. This has helped reduce the teenage
pregnancy rate on a local scale.

When I first got to my site almost two years ago I learned about all of the health disparities and challenges that my counterparts at the Ministry of Health are up against every day. Just to name a few, there was a high rate of teenage pregnancy. Around 30% of all pregnancies were to girls under the age of 18. Our casa materna (house for pregnant women to wait for their due date, so that they can get to the health center on time to give birth) was fairly new. It didn't have much to offer women ever since the NGO funding it had pulled out. It was essentially just a bed and a sheet to sleep on, rice, oil and 2 pots in the kitchen, a dirty bathroom and place to wash clothing by hand out back.
Women were often bored, lonely and

Here are two of my counterparts (Ministry of Health workers)
giving a training to community health workers on womens' health.

anxious waiting for their babies to come and worrying about all of the family and responsibilities they left behind at home. Also, many women did not want to give birth in the health center, or were not given permission from their husbands to leave home. A related struggle has been with the indigenous community in my site. The health workers need to respect indigenous rights, beliefs and practices, including those surrounding birth and medicine. This was always a struggle because traditionally women had midwives attend their births in the home. This presented a challenge because on the national level, the Ministry of Health was mandating that all women give birth in a medical institution.

This was one of my youth groups performing a skit about
assertive communication.

Over the course of my service I have watched my counterparts and health center director navigate all of these challenges and many more. I feel like I have been able to support them on their various initiatives because we have maintained good communication and a good relationship in general. I have helped them with sexual and reproductive health classes in the high school; trained the local midwives on various topics related to family planning, birth, hygiene, and breast feeding; organized community-wide events about HIV; and led 3 different girls’ soccer teams. And now I feel like we are starting to see the results.

In the last few months my counterparts have been sharing with me some of their successes and new opportunities that they are taking advantage of. Here are some exciting results!

As I am finishing up my service, it feels really good to know that I was a part of all of this growth and improvement. I also feel like my counterparts (and hopefully the National Ministry of Health) are prepared to continue changing things for the better and will continue to work hard to benefit the whole community.