In this issue:
- Reflections from Haiti | A live webcast with PIH co-founder Paul Farmer
Join us for a live webcast at 8:30 pm EST (7:30 CST) on Friday, March 5
- Standing--and walking--in Haiti
Following the devastating earthquake, a partnership with Hôpital Albert Schweitzer is bringing prosthetic devices to amputee patients.
- STAND WITH HAITI Fund to build back better
PIH launches a new fund to support a detailed three-year recovery and rebuilding plan.
- PIH begins a new project in Kazakhstan
PIH recently began a new program in partnership with the Government of Kazakhstan to help address an epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
- March 8: International Women's Day
Celebrate International Women's Day with a slideshow featuring the achievements of women from PIH projects around the world.
- "No woman should die during pregnancy or childbirth"
PIH's partner organization in Malawi launches programs to ensure safe motherhood.
- BBC World News features PIH's work in Malawi
Watch a special segment showcasing how PIH's "social entrepreneur" programs in Malawi address poverty.
- STAND WITH HAITI events
Check out some of the many events planned this month to help support Haiti earthquake survivors, or add your own to our events calendar!
- Plus Partners In Agriculture; "We are alive"; Community health workers to accompany recovery in Haiti; Tracy Kidder's thoughts on PIH's work following the earthquake; Neg Mawon Pap Jamn Kraze; Rolling up their sleeves; A long road to recovery in Peru;PIH Calendars; Online social networking; and By the numbers.
Above photo: A young boy recovering from earthquake injuries at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince.
Reflections from Haiti | A live webcast with PIH co-founder Paul Farmer
Join us for a live webcast today at 8:30 pm EST (7:30 CST), for Reflections from Haiti, a keynote address by PIH co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer.
The talk will be part of the 2010 GlobeMed Global Health Summit at Northwestern University. The theme of this year’s summit, Ubuntu & Social Justice: Building global partnerships for a more equitable world.
Watch the live webcast of the talk on our website.
Standing--and walking--in Haiti
With thousands of survivors needing amputations to save their lives following the January 12 earthquake, the PIH/Zanmi Lasante team has been increasingly concerned with how to help amputee patients literally get back on their feet.
A partnership with Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) is starting to fit these patients with prosthetic devices. With a well-stocked factory in partnership with prosthetics manufacturer Hanger, HAS has already begun accepting patients from the Central Plateau and Artibonite regions referred by PIH/ZL.
Earlier this week, the PIH/ZL team brought three patients with lower extremity amputations to HAS for their prosthetic fitting. Staff noted the immediate change in the women as soon as they received their new legs--they were each able to stand up and walk with the aid of parallel bars, and quickly left behind their fears, prejudices, and doubts with each determined step. PIH/ZL staff also report that the three women are now able to walk as well as kick soccer balls. Next up on their agenda: dancing!
STAND WITH HAITI Fund to build back better
The enduring ramifications of the earthquake in Haiti, already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, are staggering. As the initial period of crisis in Haiti ends, the long-term work of rebuilding must begin.
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"While this rebuilding creates unprecedented challenges, it also provides opportunities for real change," said PIH co-founder and Harvard Medical School professor Paul Farmer, speaking to a packed auditorium at Harvard Medical School last month. "Might addressing the acute needs of the displaced and injured afford us a chance to address the underlying chronic condition?” he asked. After some reflection, he suggested, "So the diagnosis is: natural disaster in a setting of great and longstanding privation... Haiti needs to build back better and stronger than before. This, then, should be the treatment plan."
To support this ambitious goal, PIH has launched the STAND WITH HAITI Fund in Haiti to support a three-year recovery and rebuilding plan with an initial budget of $125 million. PIH is already moving beyond the acute phase of response in order to formulate and execute medium and long-term plans for the rebuilding of lives and livelihoods, communities, and the public health system. Although these strategies are sure to evolve over time, Haiti’s need for sustained support is already here.
Read the details of this plan, including initiatives planned for the next six months, and for the next three years.
PIH begins a new project to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis in Kazakhstan
Just south of Siberia, where PIH Russia has been combating tuberculosis for over a decade, lies another country with one of the highest rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the world—Kazakhstan.
PIH recently began a new program in partnership with the Government of Kazakhstan to help address this epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
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PIH Russia/Kazakhstan now operates programs in Russia, as well as in two regions of Kazakhstan.
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Kazakhstan, the ninth largest country in the world and with a population of 16 million people, suffers from about 20,000 new cases of TB each year, according to the World Health Organization. About 20 percent of all new TB cases detected in the large Central Asian country are multidrug-resistant, meaning that these patients are infected with dangerous strains of TB that cannot be cured by the most common first-line drugs used for treating the disease.
“The problem of TB became critical in Kazakhstan, as in the rest of the former Soviet countries, after the socio-economical devastation of 1990s, which resulted in the emergence of its drug-resistant strains, especially in prisons,” said Dr. Askar Yedilbayev, PIH’s Program Director for Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan estimates around 7,000 MDR-TB cases and only 25 percent of them currently receiving adequate treatment.”
Read more about the new program in Kazakhstan.
March 8: International Women's Day
Monday, March 8 marks International Women's Day, a global day celebrating the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.
Commemorate the day by watching a slideshow featuring women from PIH projects around the world.
"No woman should die during pregnancy or childbirth"
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Diana's mother died in childbirth. APZU is working to make sure Diana will not face the same struggle as her mother.
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Madalitso was 15 years old when she became pregnant. Afraid to tell anyone, she hid it and delivered her daughter behind her home. Amazingly, the baby survived, but Madalitso suffered from post-partum hemorrhage—heavy bleeding that usually requires emergency medical care. Although her family and neighbors administered traditional medicines, Madalitso died at home, leaving her baby, Diana, an orphan.
Wondering how she would feed and support the tiny baby, Madalitso's sister brought her to Neno District Hospital, where staff from the Ministry of Health and PIH’s sister project in Malawi, Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU), provided the infant with medical care, gave her family infant formula, clothes and the long-term social support of a community health worker.
“Without APZU, Diana would have been another statistic,” said Veronica Kanyenda, a nurse at Neno District Hospital. “She would have been an orphan in a family that lacked the means to support her. She would have died.” Herself a mother of seven children, Veronica knows full well that in her country one woman out of every 18 is at risk of dying from pregnancy or childbirth in her lifetime. Malawi’s maternal mortality rate—a measure of deaths from pregnancy related causes—is among the highest for all developing countries.
Read about how APZU is working to make motherhood safe in Malawi.
BBC World News features PIH's partners in Malawi
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Alvin Hall interviews a woman working with one of APZU's community agriculture programs.
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The ability of Zanmi Lasante--PIH's partner organization in Haiti--to effectively take action on the ground immediately following the recent earthquake speaks to years of work building up medical infrastructure, comprehensive programs, and partnerships within local communities. Which is exactly what Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU)--PIH's partner in Malawi--are now working to achieve, with a some help from Zanmi Lasante.
On March 13, watch a piece about APZU's work on Alvin’s Guide to Good Business on BBC World News. Featuring an interview with former Zanmi Lasante physician Jonas Rigodon, who has traveled from Haiti to help lead APZU, the segment highlights the shared philosophy and programming of PIH's projects in Haiti, Malawi, and other sites around the world.
The segment will also focus on one of the APZU programs directly modeled after a Zanmi Lasante initiative--the Program on Social and Economic Rights (POSER), which works to address the poverty affecting so many of our patients.
Alvin's Guide to Good Business, produced by RockhopperTV, follows finance guru Alvin Hall as he visits a different social entrepreneur each week, probing their business model, examining the potential impact of their work, and exploring the challenges to scaling their innovation.
Read more about this episode, where to watch it, and view a preview.
STAND WITH HAITI Events
From rock concerts to bake sales to marathon races to academic lectures, hundreds of our supporters have registered their STAND WITH HAITI events on our events calendar. Just a few of the events featured this month include:
Check out some of the listings in your area, or add your own event.
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