Maternal Health and Access to Safe Abortion 2014-15

Context

I. Program structure

Liaison Officer on Reproductive and sexual health including HIV – Kelly Thompson. SCORA Director- Michalina DrejzaProgram Coordinator Maternal Health and Access to Safe Abortion- Jeazul PonceProgram Assistant, Sarah Elsayed

Maternal Health and access to safe abortion is a program with the principal goal to prepare future health

professionals to take action towards safe abortion, prepare a guide to addresses abortion comprehensively with

legal and public health frameworks also, to mention laws, policies, and cultural barriers and to provide strategies to

overcome those barriers. It’s very clear that it is not to prepare medical students to provide the abortion

deliberately.

One of the main activities is the workshops on different topics which is Conducted by IFMSA and Ipas. Together

we’re Aiming to provide trainings the participants about the tools and information to provide for access to safe

abortion. Thinking of maternal health is very broad but abortion is the most significant topic due to the recent

statistics by the WHO that showed that it’s a major cause of maternal mortality.

International level:

SCORA International Team

Program Coordinator and team

NMOs

IFMSA Members

Ipas and NGOs

Project Support Division

On international level, SCORA and Ipas have been implemented workshops of access to safe abortion during pre-

GAs, GAs and RMs, in turn have trained different regional assistants so that they reproduce these workshops in their

respective regions.

National level.-

There is an increased interest in regions such as Africa and America, countries like Zambia, Argelia and Kenya tried to

do some activities with help to different organizations, Latvia, Malaysia work on advocacy campaigns to reduce

stigma and discrimination, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia wants to participate, Mexico signed agreement with Ipas Mexico

and had been working since 2012 with trainings in their different National assemblies. II. Institutional arrangements

A. Ipas1. Areas of collaboration:

RMs

ARM 2013 - Addis AbabaAmericas RM 2014 - Panama CityKuwait - February 2014Pre-APRM 2014 - BangladeshPre-Americas - Armenia, Colombia - January 2015Pre-EMR - Cairo,Egypt - February 2015

Pre-GAsPre-GA AM 2014- Taiwanpre-MM 2015, Istanbul Turkey

TOTsIpas TOT for SCORA IT - Chapel Hill, NC December 2013Ipas SCORA IT ToT - 2014 - Busia, Uganda

III. Description of program area(s)Topics that IFMSA and NMOs were mainly working on during 2014-2015 are listed below:

1. Medical education related workshop or training:

2. Advocacy3. Documents: “Youth Act for Safe Abortion”

MoU

Student taskforce

financial support

Students' representa

tive

Publication MSI

Input in documents

Workshops and

Trainings

Creation of manuals

“Youth Act For Safe

Abortion”

Advocacy

Human Rights, gender and abortiona rights-based approach to abortion, gender and abortion.

Barriers to safe abortion and strategies to address themlegal and policy barriers , social and cultural barriers, health systems barriers.

Comprehensive abortion carecounseling, abortion-related complications and post abortion care.

IV. List of other surveys conducted recently in the program area and/or on target population--------------V. Targeting criteria (how are participants selected)

The selection of participants is based on two things: The amount of basic knowledge the applicant have and his motivation to work in this critical topic.The need of the region for trained advocates.

Approach

I. Questions that need to be answered

A. How many NMOs are raising projects related to different program areas? What is the proportion of in different regions?

B. Which NMOs are currently working on quality assurance? What is the region of these NMOs? Is the development balanced among regions? Are these assessment of curriculum possible to be coordinated into a compared study in the future?

C. Which NMOs are currently working on meaningful students involvement? What is the region of these NMOs? Is the development balanced among regions?

D. Which NMOs are currently working on advocacy? What is the region of these NMOs? Is the development balanced among regions? Do they have similar goal on advocacy?

E. Which NMOs are currently working on students’ right? What is the region of these NMOs? Is the development balanced among regions?

F. Which NMOs are currently working on non-formal education? What is the region of these NMOs? Is the development balanced among regions?

G. Which activities exist about this program?

H. Exist a contact with local or some office of Ipas between the NMOs?

Youth act for safe abortion: a training guide for future health professionals.

This training guide is a joint project by Ipas and IFMSA, develop this guide as a resource for medical students who want to learn about and engage in abortion issues.

I. Exist contact with some or other externals that talk about this program?J. How many participants did it some activity? K. How many people are participated in last RMs or GAs during trainings?L. The training of Ipas, are reproducing from some NORAs or LORA that took this training before?

I. Briefly list the methods that will be applied

A. Review program proposal adopted in MM15.B. Review NMO reports for MM15 and AM14.C. Review applications of NMOs applying for projects fair/activities fair competition for MM15 and AM14.D. Review MSIs in past three years on IFMSA website. E. Review Policy Statements on IFMSA web

Analysis

I. Main goal and expected impactA. Main goal

1. Improve maternal health and knowledge of medical students and future health care providers about

maternal health also to educate them about access to safe abortion with the IpasB. Medium-term objetives

1. To provide training through capacity building workshops to current and future health professionals on maternal health.2. Get more NMOs involved for participate on the workshops, trainings, advocacy and campaigns.

C. Long-term objectives1. Increased the number NMOs that participate on development of this Program2. Work on new partnerships between Ipas regionals offices and NMOs3. Create and implement activities for the population and perform them nationally and locally level.

II. Outcomes

A. NMO reports/ Activities Fair Review1. Medical Education workshop/training

International level:Previously I wrote all workshops that made it RMs, GAs and TOTs.

According to MM15 report, the NMOs that are interest are: LaMSA Latvia, MSAKE (Kenya), ZAMSA (Zambia), Le Souk

(Algeria), SMMAMS (Malaysia), AEMPI (Ecuador), IFMSA Mexico (Mexico).

1. Geographical zones (Proportion of NMOs in different regions)○ Africa: 2

○ Americas: 2○ Asia-Pacific: 1○ EMR: 1○ Europe: 1

■ In European Region there are more acceptances about the safe abortion and many NMOs are working on that, but Africa or America has a difficult laws and health system policies with a lot rejection the topic of safe abortion, therefore , IFMSA members there are very motivated and interested to work on this topic but it’s very hard to start it there.

2. Participation population: Without quantitative data recorded3. Target groups: medical students4. Type of activities: Ipas workshop and training.

2. AdvocacyThe Ipas training includes abortion advocacy, peer education on abortion, abortion accompaniment and were made only on international events.

a. RMs

i. ARM 2013 - Addis Ababa

ii. Americas RM 2014 - Panama City

iii. Kuwait - February 2014

iv. Pre-APRM 2014 - Bangladesh

v. Pre-Americas - Armenia, Colombia - January 2015

vi. Pre-EMR - Cairo,Egypt - February 2015

b. Pre-GAs

i. Pre-GA AM 2014- Taiwan

ii. pre-MM 2015, Istanbul Turkey

c. TOTs

i. Ipas TOT for SCORA IT - Chapel Hill, NC December 2013

ii. Ipas SCORA IT ToT - 2014 - Busia, Uganda

1. Number of NMOs involved: 6○ We don’t have a specific number of participant or registers for NMOs

2. Geographical zones Ipas workshop was made it (Proportion of NMOs in different regions)○ Africa: 3○ Americas: 2○ Asia-Pacific: 2○ EMR: 1○ Europe: 1

○3. Participation population: there aren’t a data base (not yet)4. Target groups: medical students5. Type of activities: Ipas workshop6. Patterns that medical students engaged in the program:Written policy statement, in MM14 Access to Safe Abortion

○ Proposed by AMSA-Australia, Seconded by Medsin-UK,

B. Policy Statement Review

Since 2012 were written two policy statements, where including maternal health and access to safe abortion.

C. MSI Review

4 issues in MSI magazine:

MSI 29: “We are SCORA- Japangels” - Japan

MSI28: “SCORA Japangels fight against tabo” -Japan “The role of family planning in achieving the millennium goals” – Medsin Sudan

MSI30: “Safe Abortion in Mexico, health problem? A right which is finally getting access?”

Access to Safe Abortion (MM14) Women’s Rights to

Sexual and Reproductive Health (AM12)

D. Overview on current effort of IFMSA and NMOs

One of the important things we must do is stop working the abortion issue only with external, begin to work it

with the population, we having reach and impact, through different activities and projects.

There's been a huge job, to obtain economic resources, prepare medical students and to transmit that abortion

is not a matter of taboo, but a human rights issue and access to adequate procedures that have the women right

to choose.

1. Outcome 1: sensitize and get involved medical students

What we have now:a. Policy Statement, “Access to safe Abortion”b. Ipas trainingc. Manual: “Youth act for safe abortion”

Future expectation (expected impact):a. Spread the Ipas training on national and local level. b. Get more countries (NMOs) involved and ready to participate.c. Change in attitude and values of medical students towards safe abortion advocacyd. [Program Coordinator supports] Templates of report should be designed based on baseline assessment

and indicators of program, for example, the application form of MM15 activities fair, and especially includes the scale, frequency, and number of participants of activity.

e. ACTIVITIES for local and national level for target group: women and general population.

Target○ Increase the number of participant○ Promoting of the program○ Increase the number of participants three times more than baseline per year.○ Build participant capacity and commitment to take action for safe abortion.

2. Outcome 2: promotion and advocacy for access to safe abortion and implement more topics about maternal health.

What we have now:a. Policy statement “access to safe abortion”b. Policy Statement, Women’s Rights to Sexual and Reproductive Health c. Articles about safe abortion in MSId. Ipas training

Target○ Increase the number of students involved in the program and advocacy campaigns.○ Improve the quality and quantity of policy statement adopted by IFMSA.○ Encourage and support all the NMOs to write national and international policy statements.○ Support and motivate all the NMOs to write articles about “Maternal Health and Access to safe

abortion”. ○ Advocacy social networks campaigns ○ Implement more maternal health topics and public health problems about it.

3. Outcome 3: Medical curricula, externals and Ipas training, data base and evaluation form

What we have now:a. Policy Statementsb. Collaboration with external organizations.c. MoU with Ipasd. Participation in TOTs of Ipase. Ipas training for International and regional level.f. Manual and tools for medical students.

Target○ Realize evaluation form of SCORA angels○ Realize surveys about the program○ Increase the participants for Ipas training○ Established new partnerships with new NGOs about maternal health. ○ Realize data base of participant in the Ipas training.○ Disseminate the manual to NMOs (National and local level)○ Peer education and activities in national or local level.

Summary

The main objective of this report is to present the progress and achievements made in regard to program activities

during this time, the objectives to be achieved in the short term, the great work that has been done with Ipas which It is

expected in the short term it is possible that the NMOs can contact their respective Ipas office (if any), also provides that

information about the issue of abortion is taboo in multiple sites around the world and distinguished by controversy

importance as a right or a health problem. Importantly, during this time it has been growing acceptance towards this

issue, but there are still cultural barriers and social problems which will have to overcome.

This program aims to break these patterns, try to involve medical students, sensitize and prepare future health

professionals to take appropriate measures to safe abortion, to have reach enhance population and start activities with

greater impact to raise awareness not only to medical students, start to include the society.

IFMSA has had a huge impact, transcending in the minds of people about the issue of safe abortion, change the vision

and the acceptance of this issue still remains a controversial issue in accordance with the different policies, legislation

and health systems world.