The 10th International Women and Health Meeting (IWHM) will be held between the 21 and 25 of September 2005 in New Delhi, India. The conference will aim to highlight resistance to political issues that are of significance to women's health, including: market liberalisation, militarisation, fundamentalism of all kinds, and developmental models which are having a destructive impact on the environment. Linkages between all these areas, and their impact on women's health, will be explored, with an ultimate focus on the issue of women's health as a fundamental right. Key themes will include: public health; health sector reforms and gender; reproductive and sexual health and rights; politics and resurgence of population control policies; women's rights and medical technologies; violence (of state, militarism, family and development) and women's health. Call for Participation: The 10th IWHM Program Committee invites write-ups for paper presentation, cultural events, organization of workshops, etc. relating to the conference theme and objectives.

The deadline for submissions is 1 December 2004.
For further information, contact:
Manisha Gupte
Email: masum@vsnl.com
Sarojini N.B.
Email: samasaro@vsnl.com
Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16027
Source: The Communication Initiative
www.comminit.org

COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROMOTING WOMEN’S HEALTH

            In July 2004 we concluded a one-year program called Community Outreach Promoting Women’s Health with the financial support of the Global Fund for Women. This program aimed to increase social awareness of crucial issues related to women’s health and rights in Bulgaria. Through contacts and seminars, the community outreach offered information that was explicitly sensitive to gendered aspects of health and healthcare, to the specific problems faced by women in the healthcare system. It was directed towards women and girls in Bulgaria from different ethnic backgrounds, in terms of ameliorating existing health problems and the stress associated with them, preventing health problems, and being empowered to be active participants in their medical care and advocates for their rights. One of our main resources in this endeavor was the Bulgarian translation of Our Bodies, Ourselves. The philosophy that runs through all of our proposed activities is one of interactive collaboration, mutuality and continuous adaptation of the outreach process based on the received feedback.

The community outreach was conducted in collaboration with the community centers Chitalishte and a number of women’s non-governmental organizations. At this point we have carried out 17 seminars in 6 different Bulgarian towns and villages. We have reached women’s groups gathering at community centers who are interested in health issues and need health information. One of the main goals of the WHI was to initiate continuous discussion on women’s health among these groups and communities. This we achieved by encouraging women to meet and share learning and mutual support. We also offered assistance – in the form of knowledge and advice – to spontaneously emerging women’s groups united by their common interests in health and health rights. Thus, WHI succeeded in establishing close connections with other NGOs sharing similar views and goals.

These meetings were very successful and there is great interest on the part of Chitalishta and women’s groups to continue and expand the Outreach. The impact has been attested through the feedback at discussion groups and focus groups we have conducted and through structure surveys we have distributed. 

As a continuation of the Outreach Program, in October 2004 we organized a two-day workshop for women’s organizations in Sofia. This initiative was financially supported by the Network of East-West Women (NEWW). Women from 11 different groups attended the workshop. Most of them represented informal, grassroots women’s groups from very small towns and villages. At this workshop the WHIBG team  presented the Bulgarian edition of OBOS as well as the book’s history and philosophy and suggested resources that could be used by women groups as a valuable sources of knowledge and ideas. The participants discussed ways of promoting women’s health, told about good practices from their work and shared opinions on numerous local and general problems concerning women’s social rights and health.

As part of the workshop we also discussed parts of the Peer-educator training guide, developed by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective under the Latina Health Initiative. The original title of this manual is Guia de Capacitacion para Promotoras de Salud and it is based on the Spanish-language cultural adaptation of OBOS – Nuestros Cuerpos, Nuestras Vidas. For the meeting we translated the introduction and two of the modules -  Mental Health, Stress and Depression and Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco – and presented them to the participants. This presentation was only an initial step - on the basis of this guide we will be developing a Bulgarian culturally adapted manual to be used to prepare peers to facilitate the group meetings at their local towns. We plan to organize a more extensive Train-the-Trainer seminar in the future based on additional adaptation of the manual and the initial experience from the first local group meetings.

A presentation of the Bulgarian edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" was held at the American Cultural Center in Sofia. Similar events are being planned for other cities in Bulgaria. You can find the Bulgarian edition of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" in the bookstores of publishing house "Colibri".

THIRD NATIONAL CONGRESS OF STERILITY, CONTRACEPTION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

Organized by: Bulgarian Association of Infertility and Reproductive Health

Held: March 10-13 2002, Samokov Hotel, Borovets

Participants: Bulgarian and foreign professionals

Agenda: scientific reports and discussions on problems and aspects of different methods for sterility treatment

Bulgarian Association of Sterility and Reproductive Health

Българска асоциация по стерилитет и репродуктивно здраве  

             www.basrh.org