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SAF Nepal Annual report 2010

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News Kathmandu - 2nd January 2011

Led by Dr. Rita Thapa, a pilot training of a 9 weeks course on Applied Community Change And Skilled Birth Attendant was held on November 16, 2010 in Pokhara which we conducted in partnership with Poverty Alleviation Fund and the National Health Training Centre. After all preparations are complete we will be informing you and all SAF chapters on the course that we have designed and the modalities for selection of suitable candidates.
 
Sincerely,
Nishchal N. Pandey


Highlights of SAF-Nepal in 2010

The SAF Nepal has continued its focus on promoting the SAF Founder's aspiration of a more cooperative and peaceful South Asia. This aspiration is being pursued through empowering healthworkers, women in particular, through public-private partnerships.

After having successfully completed in 2009-2010 the training of 161 Assistant Nurse Midwives from the poorest 25 districts of Nepal, the South Asia Foundation is now linking its rich experience to train candidates from other SAARC countries in its second phase program. Eminent partner organizations like the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), National Health Training Centre, Ministry of Population and Health have joined hands with SAF in its second phase initiative.

To this effect, a glimpse of activities carried out by SAF-Nepal in 2010 is listed below.

A MoU was signed between the SAF Founder Ambassador Madanjeet Singh and the Chairperson Dr. Rita Thapa to establish a Madanjeet Centre for Public Health and Regional Cooperation on April 15, 2010.

  1. Following which, Madanjeet Centre for Public Health and Regional Cooperation  (MCPHRC) was registered, with the Company Registrar in Kathmandu, Nepal on 21st May 2010 that is B.S Jestha 07, 2067, as a non-political and a secular learning resource centre in the field of Public Health. Its main aim is to provide training to qualified candidates from eight SAARC countries, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, among others. Founder of the South Asia Foundation is supporting the MCPHRC with the due scholarships required for training public health professionals from eight SAARC countries. MCPHRC will fully be responsible to implement these scholarships.
  2. After establishing MCPHRC, the SAF-Nepal team has carried out several rounds of discussions with related partner organizations in the way of seeking their partnership to sail through the objectives of MCPHRC.
  3. A draft brochure of MCPHRC has been prepared involving eminent potential partners like Poverty Alleviation Fund, National Health Training Centre, MoPH, Future Generation Graduate School, SAARC secretariat, Kathmandu.
  4. MCPHRC launched its first program as a pilot training of a 9 weeks course on Applied Community Change And Skilled Birth Attendant on 16 November, 2010 in Pokhara. Eminent partners like the Poverty Alleviation Fund, Future Generation Graduate School, and National Health Training Centre supported the MCPHRC to carryout this novel pilot training before the MCPHRC could invite health professional from the other SAARC countries.

    Like Nepal, the health work force in other SAARC countries are also inadequate in the skills & capacity to bring health changes in communities. Without such changes, achieving the millennium development goals (MDG) in SAARC countries seems far off and unsustainable. Thus the need to train health professionals in skills and knowledge that could bring change in community behavior leading to universal and sustainable access of health care services, reproductive health care in particular.
  5. In the course, the MCPHRC has developed a practical public health course curriculum based on a well-tested method of Self-Evaluation for Effective Decision-Making and System for Communities to Adapt Learning and Expand (SEED-SCALE), which was initially developed by late Prof. Carl Taylor,  one of the key architects of the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care.  Below is a thematic flow chart of curriculum developed and applied as a test case by MCPHRC in the aforementioned training.

    Flowchart of building capacity of ANM-SBA on Applied Community Change From Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health.
  6. The first training was successfully implemented. The SEED-SCALE could be well adapted to train public health of various expertise in the key approach of Primary Health Care namely the Community Changes for Health. All the action plans developed by participants were addressed to community behavior change for improved MNCH. The MCPHRC has gained enough hands on experience from this pilot training. It is ready to invite participants from the SAARC countries.
  7. MCPHRC looks forward to scale this program regionally in 2011 with continued support of the founder of SAF and the other eminent partners within and outside Nepal.