With support from Jhpiego and champions like Dr. Jean Claude Comoe, Côte d’Ivoire is building a sustainable cervical cancer prevention program. More than 36,000 women have benefited from a low-cost, effective screen-and-treat approach.
Nyabor Bandak, a gender counselor at Gambella Teachers Education and Health Science College, vividly remembers the nursing student’s visit to her office. The student, who was well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a nurse, had discovered she was pregnant. Sad and distraught, the third-year student confided in Bandak that her partner had denied responsibility for the baby.
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso—With grit, tenacity, just $200,000 in startup funding and a dynamic team of family planning (FP) trainers, an effort to provide women in Burkina Faso with access to long-acting FP immediately following childbirth has succeeded beyond all expectations. The success of that initiative, carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH), has leveraged additional resources from UNFPA and other donors to scale up the availability of postpartum family planning (PPFP) services and access to the IUD in the immediate postpartum period, broadening access to FP even more widely in the West African country. Since April 2013, more than 1,600 Burkinabé women have adopted a PPIUD through this initiative.
Every day 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Helena’s story shows us it doesn’t have to be this way.
