Collaboration Opportunity for Taskforce Members

Dear Friends,

I am writing to let you know about an exciting new opportunity for collaboration with an international health organization.

The Hesperian Foundation, which is responsible for publications including Where There Is No Doctor and Where Women Have No Doctor, is putting together a new manual, Action Resource for Women’s Health and Empowerment, that will help community-based organizations address women’s health issues.

To assist in putting together this new manual, the Hesperian Foundation is looking for community partners that are currently working with women’s health on a grassroots level. We want to identify promising practices community-based groups around the world are using to promote women’s health and empowerment. The scope of the resource we are developing covers the entire range of health-related issues featured in Where Women Have No Doctor, including pregnancy and family planning; infertility; sexuality and sexual rights; health system issues; nutrition; disabilities; the girl child and adolescent; HIV, STIs, and RTIs; violence, mental health, abortion, and gender and gender rights. It will highlight effective actions in a wide range of areas including clinical care; education; community organizing, mobilization and advocacy; training; and monitoring and evaluation.

The Hesperian Foundation is especially interested in learning about:

1. community-based organizations from rural and/or urban settings
   1. name of the organization, contact person, contact information including email
   2. brief description (if you have it available) of the areas the organization works on and aspects you think are most promising/effective/innovative
2. instruments
   1. manuals, toolkits, guidelines for carrying out community-based activities, tools for carrying out evaluation activities
   2. project descriptions of innovative or highly effective (tried and true) program or project approaches
3. lessons learned
   1. reports or summaries of lessons the organization has learned through its work
   2. your ideas about the lessons learned and/or recommendations you have gleaned from working with this group and/or others in similar areas

Thank you so much for any help you can give us. Your input will help to make sure this new resource will include the most promising experiences, and will help other groups enrich their work and become even more effective.

If you are interested in pursuing this collaboration, please contact me at karen_koprince@yahoo.com for further information. I look forward to working with you all!

Best wishes,

Karen Koprince

GHETS Intern