Educational Program

Our Bold Idea is the Ukweli Test Strip - a low-cost test for Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), in rural areas of Sierra Leone, where women currently lack an affordable tool for screening UTIs. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to UTIs: In sub-Saharan Africa, 30-50% of pregnant women will contract one. UTIs often go undiagnosed because of barriers to testing, including cost, accessibility and social stigma.

While globally maternal mortality is declining, the most vulnerable women are still being left behind. In Guatemala indigenous Maya women are more than twice as likely to die from childbirth than non-indigenous women. Fear of public hospitals—stemming from language barriers, mistreatment by staff, institutional complexity and discrimination—leads women to refuse referral when complications arise during home births.

Focus is on one of the most disadvantaged but neglected populations in the world, the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes DNTs in India with population of 110 million (Govt of India NCDNT Report Vol 2, 2005-06), have among the worst gender inequalities, women still subjected to medieval atrocities & barbaric penalties e.g. branding tip of their tongue with iron, taking out coin from hot boiling oil, strong grip of Caste Councils, have rigid patriarchy, treated as born criminals due to tag of criminality since 1871.

Economic dependence is a primary injustice facing out of school girls. With the world’s youngest population and endemic unemployment, family resources in Uganda are stretched and girls do not get the same opportunities as boys. Less than 50% of girls complete primary school and less than 1% finish secondary school in rural areas; once a girl leaves school she is less able to seek resources. With prevalent teenage pregnancy and the highest HIV/AIDS rate nationwide, there is a vulnerable population of girls in Western Uganda engaging in risky behaviors like sex-work or early marriage.

Men in Afghan refugee (IDP) camps make health decisions relating to women accessing health services, including family planning (FP). Men and women want smaller families but lack knowledge and skills to achieve this. Knowledge, change in male attitude, empowerment of women and a viable franchise model are required to achieve wide benefit from FP (smaller family size, and healthier mothers with reduced mortality from unwanted pregnancy and less chronic anemia; plus secondary benefits from longer breast feeding of infants, better weight gain and increased mother infant interaction.

Chaupadi, a practice in remote Nepal that forces menstruating women to inhabit cramped sheds away from their home, is a form of structural violence. While outlawed, the practice continues, leaving young women vulnerable to infections, asphyxiation, burns, & snake bites. In the last year alone, two young women died from Chaupadi where we work in Far Western Nepal. Chaupadi perpetuates the inferior status of females and reinforces other insidious practices like son preference.

In developing countries, foodborne bacteria is a significant cause of illness and death especially for those with compromised or undeveloped immune systems, such as pregnant women and infants. Foodborne pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria, Campylobacter and Salmonella often cause birth defects, miscarriage and diarrhea, but do not have simple identification tests. Diarrhea is a common illness associated with contaminated food, unsafe water, and bad sanitation, causing 1 in 9 child deaths worldwide (10-15% in sub-Saharan Africa and 5-10% in Egypt).

MobileVaani is a missed call technology platform for bottom-of-the-pyramid rural users. Accessible free of charge from any mobile phone, MV operates in 25 Indian districts and has 1.5 million users. TikaVaani ("vaccine voice") is a project to improve child vaccination coverage in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. It uses the MV platform for (1) behaviour change communication, (2) health worker training, and (3) community-based monitoring and use of call metadata to improve governance, transparency, and health services delivery.

Low access to health services lead to child malnutrition in northern Ghana. About 60% of Ghana’s children are anaemic. Northern region has a rate of 82%, exceeding the WHO’s 40% showing severe public health problem. Radio is cheap and popular among most vulnerable communities in African nations. For example, of 365 northern Ghana farmers, 88.5% indicated that they listened to the radio daily, and most residents prefer drama programs . Our Bold idea, based on the health belief model, uses radio messages as cues to positive behaviours in northern region of Ghana.

Tiny Totos is building a network of affordable, stimulating and safe daycares in slums by training informal entrepreneurs to provide better care for under-3s. Our coaching programmes have succeeded in teaching applied business skills, to create financially independent, standard-setting daycares improving children's health and developmental indicators. We however recognize that to sustain improvements in children's' lives, improved practices must be reinforced at home.