Keeping Promises

Tuesday, June 30th, 10:51 am

When I first went to Afghanistan in 2003, I was asked to develop a social marketing strategy that would improve women's health. Afghanstan has one of the highest infant/maternal mortality rates in the world. One out of four women dies in childbirth and many children in Afghanistan don't live past the age of four. Those are the worst health indicators in the world.

With cultural challenges everywhere it was important to get a base-line on what was happening. An entire generation of women had not been out of the house. So it was really difficult to figure out how or if women were getting health services. It was even difficult to determine what was a clinic and what wasn't. The literacy rate was about 1% and men were still terrified to touch a woman - even to administer health services. So we travelled around the country conducting meetings about what was needed. In every clinic, in every village, in every community there were only male (men) community health workers. Many of the men were in tears trying to explain that they wanted to help the women in their villages. We all knew the answer was to train a new generation of female community health workers.

In one of the outreach sessions I asked the men to raise their hands if they would agree to go home and encourage their sisters, mothers and wives to become health workers. They all raised their hands. I wonder where they are now. I wonder if women are health workers now. I wonder if we made any impact at all.