Category: Community Health
We’re training local women to offer community health education and services in their villages, enabling couples to plan and better provide for their families, improving food security and boosting the sustainability of local conservation efforts.
Safidy at the start of 2014: behaviour change in a time of new year’s resolutions
By Caroline Savitzky, Safidy (Community Health) Programme Coordinator, Velondriake, Madagascar Behaviour change is hard. Anyone who has tried to stick to a new year’s resolution, whether it’s quitting smoking, eating well or being more patient, knows this to be true; especially...
PHE is alive and kicking: inspiration and endorsement from Addis Ababa
By Laura Robson and Caroline Savitzky The excitement was palpable as we gathered with almost 200 of the world’s finest Population-Health-Environment (PHE) practitioners, researchers and advocates in Addis Ababa for the International PHE Conference earlier this month! With all of...
Reaching the hardest to reach with reproductive health choices
Two boys splash across the shallows as the tide goes out in the channel by Begamela, a small fishing community on Madagascar’s southwest coast, chasing after their model pirogues, adjusting the sails and setting them off in a race towards...
PHE arrives in Belo sur Mer!
By Vik Mohan, Medical Director Last month I visited Belo sur Mer to witness the excellent progress that Lison Garrel has already made in implementing our new Safidy community health programme in the area, integrating it into our existing community-based mangrove...
Happy Birthday Blue Ventures and Happy Birthday Safidy!
By Vik Mohan, Medical Director This year, my annual trip to Madagascar coincided with two important anniversaries. Not only is Safidy, our community health programme, six years old, but we are also celebrating ten years of Blue Ventures’ work in...
My village outreach tour experience with the Safidy team in Velondriake
By Lison Garrel, Safidy (Community Health) Programme Coordinator, Belo sur Mer Last month the Belo sur Mer team travelled to Andavadoaka to attend the annual Blue Ventures conference. We spent four productive days catching up with colleagues from all over Madagascar,...
Three cities, five days, six presentations: lighting fires in the US
By Vik Mohan, Blue Ventures’ Medical Director I recently returned from a whistle-stop one-week tour of three US cities, where I was working to raise the profile of Blue Ventures’ integrated Population-Health-Environment (PHE) approach, sharing the results of our work,...
Telling our story: capturing the complexity of Blue Ventures’ integrated work
By Charlie Gough, marine scientist, and Laura Robson, community health coordinator What do you get if you put twelve evaluation specialists in a small room with four Population-Health-Environment (PHE) [1] practitioners? Five hours of mind-blowing conversations about capturing the complexity of...
Uncovering family planning needs in Belo sur Mer
By Lison Garrel, Safidy (Community Health) Programme Coordinator, Belo sur Mer My involvement with Blue Ventures started at the beginning of 2013, with a two-month mission to Belo sur Mer on Madagascar’s west coast. The aim: to conduct an assessment...
The choice is yours: Safidy reproductive rights training
By Brian Jones, Conservation Coordinator, Toliara, Madagascar While in Andavadoaka a few months ago for the Velondriake Association’s election and first general assembly of 2013, I was lucky enough to catch the Safidy programme’s quarterly review and reproductive rights training...
When there are no more fish in the sea
Cuaming Island, Philippines Rogelio Angco traces the neat rows of numbers with his finger as he recounts the details of the ‘Barangay Profile’; the chart framed above his desk. This table keeps a meticulous record of the makeup of the...
My visit to the Safidy programme in Andavadoaka
by Samantha Cockburn, Medical Elective with Safidy, Madagascar Three years ago I received an email from my medical school advertising a lecture aimed at local GPs entitled ‘Is Sex Going To Kill Us?’ given by Professor John Guillebaud, Emeritus Professor...
Cyclone Haruna response update (3)
Blue Ventures is continuing to respond to cyclone Haruna, which hit southwest Madagascar as a powerful category 2 storm exactly one month ago on 22nd February 2013. For previous updates about the situation, please follow the links here and here and here. Since the cyclone...
Ravao’s story: from 12 children to community health worker
By Dr Vik Mohan, Medical Director, UK I recently spent a hectic and intense couple of weeks in the village of Andavadoaka, the village where our community health programme is based, during my annual visit to Madagascar. Although I founded this initiative...
Calling all mothers: Safidy has a new home and maternal & child health programme!
by Dr Clarisse Razanamampionona, Safidy’s Doctor, and Samantha Cockburn, Medical Elective Student. Safidy is part of Blue Ventures’ integrated Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) approach to conservation in the Velondriake area of southwest Madagascar. Safidy, which means “choice” or “freedom...