close
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20161026144610/https://www.k4health.org/

Latest Updates

  • Blog post
    October 26, 2016

    Reducing Early Marriage to Prevent Gender-based Violence and HIV in Swaziland’s Young Girls

    This post was originally published by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative.

    Indvuna Michael Magongo

    According to Indvuna Michael Magongo, “The norm that a man should marry a very young girl because women age fast is no longer supported in our community.”

    “We as traditional leaders cannot watch young girls acquire HIV and be exposed to sexual abuse in the name of marriage.”

    Michael Magongo lives in a deeply rural village in Swaziland known as Bhadzeni Chiefdom. He, like the rest of the villagers, is a subsistence farmer growing corn and beans. He is married and, somewhat unusually, has only one wife.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    October 24, 2016

    The Importance of Communication in Reaching the Last Mile

    This post was originally published by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.

    Halima Shariff, Director, Advance Family Planning Tanzania, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, leads a panel with donors at the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition reception at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington.

    Halima Shariff, Director, Advance Family Planning Tanzania, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, leads a panel with donors at the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition reception at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington.

    Last week, along with several other colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP), I attended the 17th General Membership Meeting of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) in Seattle, Washington. In addition to collecting interviews for the Family Planning Voices initiative, which we co-lead with Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), we also had the opportunity to think about how communication fits within the complex world of supply chain management.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    October 12, 2016

    Out-of-School Youth: Often Forgotten in Reproductive Health Programs

    A young Burkinabe girl cares for her sick little brother in Koudougou, Burkina Faso.

    A young Burkinabe girl cares for her sick little brother in Koudougou, Burkina Faso. © 2012 Mohamad Syar/CCP, Courtesy of Photoshare

    The Family Planning Youth Ambassador Program in Burkina Faso focuses on raising awareness about family planning and reproductive health services among our country’s youth. We’ve engaged a lot of young people on the topic, but, as this testimonial from a young woman named Chantal shows, we were unintentionally leaving out many young people, namely married adolescents and out-of-school youth.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    October 10, 2016

    Astrologers, Shamans and Priests Mobilize against Child Marriage in Nepal

    This post was originally published by UNFPA.

    Three women with their children in Far Western Nepal. All of the women were child brides.

    Three women with their children in Far Western Nepal. All of the women were child brides. © UNFPA Nepal/Santosh Chhetri

    BAITADI DISTRICT, Nepal – A girl’s astrological birth chart can hold the keys to her future in this remote corner of Far Western Nepal. And in the right hands, this is a good thing.

    When parents bring their daughter’s “cheena,” a chart made according to the Hindu astrological calendar, to 66-year-old astrologer and priest Dev Dutta Bhatta, he pays close attention to the birth year. If the girl is underage, he advocates for her parents to wait until she is an adult before arranging her marriage.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    October 03, 2016

    Engaging Communities to End HIV: Reaching Swaziland's Adolescent Girls and Young Women

    Young women, members of the HC3 Young Women’s Empowerment Program in Swaziland, participate in a Community Clean up Campaign they organized for their area.

    Young women, members of the HC3 Young Women’s Empowerment Program in Swaziland, participate in a Community Clean up Campaign they organized for their area. Photo: HC3 Swaziland

    Swaziland’s young, married women are a priority population to reach in order to end new HIV infections, given that the country has a generalized HIV epidemic. Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world, estimated at 26% among adults 15-49 and 31% among adults 18-49. Among young women, HIV prevalence ranges from 31% (women age 20-24) to 47% (25-29). HIV incidence is highest in women age 20-24 (4.2%) and 35-39 (4.2%).

    Read More
  • Blog post
    September 29, 2016

    Leyla: Advocating for Niger’s Young Married Girls

    Leyla is now 21, with a four-year-old son named Salim.

    Leyla is now 21, with a four-year-old son named Salim. Photo by Mina Kaci.

    She was like an earthquake: shaking everyone around her to the core, exposing their fault lines, damaging their usual demeanor, and challenging their beliefs in what should be the order of things. Unlike other huge natural phenomena like typhoons and hurricanes, earthquakes don’t have names—but this one did, because it was a positive earthquake. It was called Leyla.

    Leyla is the new normal for girls in Niger. A girl of 18 who spoke her mind, she was at the youth center to talk about how she benefited from an eight-month empowerment program for adolescent girls to reduce child marriage and teen pregnancy. Leyla had been chosen to speak because she had completed a program called Illimin, which in Houasa means “the knowledge.” Developed by UNFPA, Illimin has since become the flagship program of the government of Niger and is a successful model of what works in adolescent empowerment and child marriage and teen pregnancy reduction.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    September 26, 2016

    K4Health Celebrates the World’s Young Changemakers on World Contraception Day 2016

    David Alexander, Liz Futrell, and Sarah Harlan pose for a pre-interview selfie with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, 120 Under 40 winner from South Africa.

    David Alexander, Liz Futrell, and Sarah Harlan pose for a pre-interview selfie with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, 120 Under 40 winner from South Africa. Photo by David Alexander.

    There’s no better way to take the pulse of a movement than to listen to what its youngest leaders have to say. Last week, K4Health and FP2020’s Family Planning Voices initiative did just that in New York City, when we interviewed the 2016 World Contraception Day Ambassadors and several winners of 120 Under 40: The New Generation of Family Planning Leaders about their commitment to expanding awareness of and access to contraception and related services to underserved populations. We spoke with young leaders from Uganda, India, Trinidad & Tobago, Canada, Lesotho, Poland, Vietnam, Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya, and the U.S. about the work they’re being recognized for and their priorities for the future. While their countries, backgrounds, disciplines, and programs are diverse, several common threads that highlight the innovation that young people are bringing to the movement emerged from our conversations.

    Read More
  • Resources
    September 22, 2016

    Senegal’s Journey Toward an eHealth Strategy: Highlights from the Development Process

    In 2014, the Senegal Ministry of Health and Social Action (MOHSA) began the development of a national eHealth strategy. This report documents the process of developing the Senegal eHealth Strategic Plan; compares the process to the steps in the WHO/ITU eHealth Strategy Toolkit; and shares successes and challenges encountered during the process, to inform the work of those involved in similar efforts.

    eHealth
    eHealth Strategy
    mHealth
  • Blog post
    September 19, 2016

    For Their Dignity and Our Humanity: Responding to the Needs of Married Girls

    Girls making crafts at an ECHO-funded youth center in Jordan's Zaatari camp.

    Girls making crafts at an ECHO-funded youth center in Jordan's Zaatari camp. Photo credit: © EU/ECHO/Peter Biro via Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

    Zahra is a 14-year-old girl living in Jordan. When she was five years old, she dreamt of going to school. When she was ten and in school, she dreamt of becoming a doctor.

    At 12 years old, Zahra fled Syria with her family. As refugees, her parents encountered a life of unprecedented instability and poverty. Desperate to secure a future for his daughter, Zahra’s father arranged for her to marry a man in his 20s. Zahra protested, but she had no other options: She wasn’t in school, her family couldn’t afford to feed her, and she had no way of earning an income on her own. Given this desperate situation, she married an adult man before she was old enough to drive a car or vote. At age 14, she became a mother.

    Read More
  • Blog post
    September 19, 2016

    Understand the Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance with the Global Health eLearning Center

    A woman in Pemba, Mozambique receives an explanation on how to take ACTs for malaria.

    Photo source - Arturo Sanabria, Courtesy of Photoshare. Description - A woman in Pemba, Mozambique receives an explanation on how to take ACTs for malaria.

    On September 21st, global leaders attending this year’s United Nations General Assembly will discuss one of the most pressing global public health threats of our time: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This AMR meeting is only the fourth time in the global body’s history that a health topic will be discussed at a High-Level Meeting. It’s an overdue signal of the problem’s severity and reflects the global collaboration and coordination required to address it.

    Read More