Best Investment for a Healthier World

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Backpacks that save lives? You bet!

By Jeffrey Walker and Ray Chambers, MDG Health Alliance NOTE: This piece was originally posted in The Huffington Post Impact Blog. Summer is winding down. Store shelves are stocked with notebooks and pencils instead of sunscreen and beach balls. And for most kids, the essential back-to-school...

Ensuring health workforce takes its place at center of global health architecture

By Richard Seifman, Consultant, IntraHealth International Courtesy IntraHealth International NOTE: This piece was originally posted on the IntraHealth Global Health Blog. Every so often, a prevailing system or approach changes dramatically. Small changes and tweaks to the status quo give way to a...

Using research and data to empower the frontline

By Karen Peddicord, Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nur ses (AWHONN) If you are beyond the intersections of certain health care circles, our association name, AWHONN (the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses), might not be familiar to you. But I hope you...

Rwandan frontline healthworkers backed by USAID’s MCHIP lead women to safe deliveries

By Musoni Pascal, Susan Moffson and Jérémie Zoungrana, Jhpiego Busoga, Rwanda—With her labor pains intensifying, Epiphanie Nyirankurikiyimana knew the time had come to leave for the health facility. Rather than give birth at home without skilled care, the 25-year-old mother, pregnant with her second...

mHMtaani: US-supported program empowers community health workers through mobile technology

By Jonathan Rucks, Pathfinder In places like the Deep Sea Slum of Nairobi, Kenya, the dangers associated with pregnancy and child birth are not to be taken lightly. Maternal mortality still claims far too many lives and quality maternal health services are not universally available or accessible to...

Teaching New Mothers Living with HIV about the Importance of Breast-feeding

By Eric Kilongi, Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Note: This post originally appeared in the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation's Blog. Though HIV can be transmitted from mother to child through breast milk, studies have shown that women living with HIV are less likely to pass the...

From Obstetric Fistula Survivor to Empowered Citizen

By Alain Kaboré, Family Care International Community outreach brings fistula survivors out of the shadows. Courtesy FCI. “Today,” Mariama Boubacar Diallo says, “Thank God, I no longer suffer. I’m healthy; I am healed.” Mariama, a resident of the village of Kriollo Ourarsaba, located in the northern...

US frontline health worker support allows palliative care delivery in Tanzania

By Hayden Peters and Jeremy Taglieri, FHSSA The HIV/AIDS pandemic affecting Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the greatest crises of our era. However, the response to that crisis is one of the finest examples of how policies and programs can have lasting results for the betterment of the human condition...

Lesotho counselor champions HIV treatment access, voluntary medical male circumcision services

By Delia Helie and A. Gillian Freedman, Jhpiego HIV/AIDS Counselor Lebeoana Tsasanyane explains free voluntary medical male circumcision services to waiting clients. Courtesy Jhpiego. At Mafeteng Hospital in Lesotho, Lebeoana Tsasanyane stands out for his unfailing commitment to ensure that men in...

Namibia's Frontline HIV Counselors Offer Help When it's Needed Most

By Margarite Nathe, IntraHealth International Say you’re feeling sick, and you’ve gone to your local clinic to see someone about it. You tell the health worker that you’ve been feeling awful and haven’t been getting any better and you’re worried, because you know that a lot of people in your country...