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MDG5 Meshwork Newsletter
March 2010
This is the newsletter of the MDG5 Meshwork for Improving Maternal Health, brought to you by the Linking & Learning team. This newsletter will keep interested up-to-date on the latest news and progress in the different projects (the Private-Public Partnerships, PPPs), meetings and relevant new publications.
The MDG5 Meshwork for Improving Maternal Health is a cross-sector, cross-disciplinary network of organizations based in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and The Netherlands. The purpose of the Meshwork is to develop innovative and effective partnerships that contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 5, to improve maternal health.
Meetings:
1. MDG5 Meshwork Collaboration Meeting - 19 March
2. Share-Net Meeting: Youth & Prevention, The Importance and Influence of Peer Groups - 9 March
MDG5 Meshwork Project Update:
1. PPP Sierra Leone
2. PPP Afghanistan
3. PPP Oxytocin
4. PPP Mothersnight
5. PPP Linking & Learning
Did you miss a newsletter? You can read previous issues here:
Newsletter 1 November 2009
Meetings
1. MDG5 Meshwork Collaboration Meeting - Friday 19 March
On 19 March PPP Linking & Learning organizes one of the bi-annual MDG5 Meshwork collaboration meetings. Jointly we will discuss the progress, successes and challenges we face in our projects – with the aim to learn from each other. Also, this is a moment to network and create new connections!
You will receive a detailed programma next week. However, we can already announce that in the morning there will be a joint programme, in the afternoon we will break up in smaller groups and discuss more indepth project issues (i.e. the Steering Committee of the Mothersnight and the Dutch Steering Committee of the Sierra Leone project already announced to have a meeting during the afternoon). For more information, contact Merel Martens (m.martens@kit.nl).
2. Share-Net Meeting: Youth & Prevention: The Importance and Influence of Peer Groups - 22 April
This year, Share-Net will focus a series of meetings on the broad theme “Youth & Prevention”. Upcoming meeting, Within that context, the importance and influence of peer groups will be discussed. While peer groups have been frequently acknowledged on a basic level (i.e. using peer educators), the discussion should become much more in depth. How are social norms and expectations established and enforced in peer groups? Which norms are promoted? How can we use and/or alter these norms to create prevention programs that actually change behaviour?
These issues will be raised and discussed in this meeting. They will begin with three papers linking theory and practice, proceed to focused and critical small group discussions, and end with a discussion of directions forward.
Click here for more information and subscription.
MDG5 Meshwork Project Update
1. PPP Sierra Leone
We are happy to announce that the Midwifery School in Makeni has been opened on 15 January 2010. Monique Lagro (Head Health department Cordaid), Margret van Gaalen (Malaria no More), Hans Scheen and Julia Schipper (Cordaid) visited Sierra Leone, and were present at the opening ceremony. In the previous months, the curriculum for midwifery education has been reviewed and made useful in the Midwifery Schools in Freetown and Makeni.
In August 2009, a first twinning workshop with the Sierra Leone Midwives Association (SLMA), KNOV, ICM, and midwives from Sierra Leone has taken place. Twinning Dutch and Sierra Leone midwives and (maternal) health professionals with one another, both raises awareness on MDG5 in the Netherlands and strengthens the Sierra Leone Midwives Association in Sierra Leone. Ideally, the twins will meet each other at a midwifery conference in Durban, South Africa in 2011 (organized by ICM).
In 2010, SLMA will organize several workshops (on leadership, on twinning, and on evidence-based working) in Sierra Leone with the help from KNOV and ICM. In February 2010, a three-day workshop on leadership has been organized, led by Nester Moyo (ICM), Anneke van der Heijden and Hilde Perdok (KNOV), and Joan Shepherd (Midwifery School Freetown). The workshop was followed by a one-day workshop on twinning (twin-to-twin). A workshop on evidence-based working will be organized later this year (2010).
The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) supports Sierra Leone with the development of a well functioning joint knowledge system for monitoring, evaluation and research by public and private partners, that contributes to the development of evidence-based interventions in reproductive and child health. In February 2010, a workshop was organized with stakeholders to disseminate the results of the mapping of promising interventions on neonatal and maternal health in Sierra Leone. It appears that a number of promising interventions are implemented in a few chieftowns, which are not being scaled up. With the input of the stakeholders and discussions with NGOs and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone, some interventions were prioritized for upscaling at district level. Six students and three tutors, working at the University of Freetown, have been selected and trained in the methodology to further assess the prioritized promising interventions. They will go on their first field visit from February 28 to March 7 to collect data, together with Kathy Herschderfer (KIT). They will try to answer the question what interventions work where and why?
Click here to learn more about the partners within the PPP, its aims, expected results and planned activities.
2. PPP Afghanistan
The Afghan Midwives Association (AMA) will attend the Regional Meeting of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) in Bangladesh in March 2010. The Dutch association for midwives (KNOV) will also be represented at this meeting. During this regional meeting, the international, Afghan and Dutch association will take the first explorative steps towards the strengthening of AMA in the light of the MDG5 Meshwork project.
COS Noord Holland will launch a pilot of their project for Vocational Education in the Netherlands in May 2010. The project will focus on the education for Assistant Midwife and will offer the students an insight into the situation for (future-) mothers in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the project will offer the students practical skills for the near future when they will be working as an Assistant Midwife in a multicultural society. For more information, please get in contact Natasja Insing (n.insing@cosnoordholland.nl).
Cordaid gave a presentation at the Avans Hogeschool in Breda in February 2010, a school for Higher Vocational Education, about maternal health in Afghanistan. During the presentation the movie about the hospital of Afghan Health and Development Services (AHDS) in Tarin Kowt was used to inform the students on the work of Cordaid’s partner organizations in Afghanistan.
The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) will leave to Afghanistan for their first mission in May 2010. KIT will discuss their literature review on the social and cultural dimensions of maternal mortality with Afghan key-figures and organizations before kicking of their action-research.
The scheduled project meeting with partners from Afghanisatan in March in the Netherlands has been postponed. A new schedule will follow and will be shared with you soon.
Click here to learn more about the partners within the PPP, its aims, respected results and planned activities.
3. PPP Oxytocin
Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is known to be a major cause of maternal mortality. Oxytocin has been described by the WHO as first choice medication for treatment of postpartum haemorrhage. Unfortunately, no heat stable oxytocin is available, making it difficult to use in developing countries. Therefore the objective of the PPP Oxytocin is the development and provision of a heat
stable oxytocin, and the distribution of the medication within the developing countries up to the individual patient.
In 2009 a positive reaction was obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the grant proposal for the Schoklandfonds. Most of the activities were granted funding, some of them on a conditional basis. One of the general conditions for the heat stable oxytocin project was the collaboration with an advisory group that the ministry had installed to advise them regarding the grant budget and other funding. Currently the advisory group is preparing a go/no go decision on the continuation of the project. You will be informed once a decision has been taken.
Click here to learn more about the partners within the PPP, its aims, respected results and planned activities.
4. PPP Mothersnight
The overall objective of the PPP is to contribute to poverty reduction by promoting MDG5 through increasing public and political awareness and through influencing public and political opinion to foster and enhance support among decision makers (government officials on all levels and members of national parliamentarians) for policies that seek to improve maternal health.
In 2010 Mothersnight will be organized in the Netherlands for the fourth time. This year the Mothersnight will be a month long campaign instead of one event. We are very happy to announce that Leoni Jansen has written a very special Mothersnight song. This song will be in the centre of this years Mothersn
ight campaign. After a kick off on the 8th of April, the song will be heard on the radio, aiming to gain massive media attention for MDG5 in The Netherlands. The closing event is on the 8th of May, the day before Mothersday. The theme this year is comprehensive sexuality education. We will inform you later about the exact lobby message and the agenda of events.
To read a detailed report about Mothersnight 2009, please click here.
Click here to learn more about the partners within the PPP, its aims, respected results and planned activities.
5. PPP Linking & Learning
The PPP Linking & Learning aims to create and maintain a linking and learning environment that facilitates connections, collaboration and learning processes between the partners and projects in the MDG5 Meshwork. Several activities are being carried out accordingly.
At the moment the Linking & Learning team is preparing several meetings for the upcoming year. During these meetings we aim for either strengthening of collaboration between the partners (collaboration meetings) or the discussion of a more content related topic (expert meetings). On March 19, we are organizing one of the bi-annual collaboration meetings, where we will review the progress in the projects and jointly discuss how to collaborate with each other.
Click here to learn more about the partners within the PPP, its aims, respected results and planned activities.
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