Guinea

Since 1990, EngenderHealth has worked in Guinea, a mountainous West African nation, to ensure that men and women’s rights to make informed choices on the timing, number, and spacing of children are respected, while at the same time helping facilitating social and economic development. Our first efforts in Guinea were at the request of the country’s Ministry of Health, which sought assistance introducing voluntary, permanent contraception in five clinics.

Recently, the Guinean government has implemented a new, ambitious population policy that aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality and increase the use of modern contraceptives. To contribute to these goals, today EngenderHealth’s work in Guinea includes:

• Making motherhood safer
• Challenging traditional gender norms, especially those that are detrimental to women’s health and lives, through our Men As Partners® program
• Expanding contraceptive choice

 
Promoting Maternal Health
EngenderHealth is assisting Guinea’s Ministry of Health in its efforts to cut maternal mortality by half by 2010 by:

• Forming the National Fistula Experts’ Committee, which works to prevent fistula and provide social reintegration for women living with fistula;
• Sponsoring a special training session to address the needs of clients with very complicated fistulas, particularly those needing surgical urinary and digestive diversions;
• Fostering community participation in fistula prevention efforts;
• Working with local social groups to conduct small business activities and skills-building courses for fistula clients;
• Provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Health’s postabortion care (PAC) working group;
• Increasing access to prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care;
• Organizing a regional workshop to on the prevention and treatment of malaria in pregnancy;
• Supporting the Ministry of Health’s adoption of a new treatment protocol (sulfadoxine pyrimethamine) to prevent malaria in pregnant women.

 
Men As Partners® 
In Guinea, EngenderHealth’s landmark Men As Partners program, which includes a series of workshops, peer-education initiatives, and media outreach, has:

• Reached more than 1,000 men through information campaigns;
• Increased understanding among men of such issues as maternal and obstetric emergencies, sexuality and gender roles, domestic violence, and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

 
Expanding Contraceptive Options
A shortage of skilled providers, inadequate supplies, and lack of accurate information about methods have hindered men’s and women’s access to modern contraception in Guinea. Through the ACQUIRE Project, funded by USAID, EngenderHealth collaborates with the country's Ministry of Health, Pathfinder International, and other agencies on the following initiatives:

• Promoting the use of long-acting contraceptives such as Norplant implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs);
• Using the media to explore community attitudes toward long acting-contraceptives and to address myths about these methods;
• Identifying potential barriers (individual, institutional, or social) that women and men may face in choosing long-acting contraceptives;
• Hosting a regional conference on monitoring and evaluation designed to help clinics assess the effectiveness of their family planning efforts;
• Training teams of doctors and nurses in a safer, more efficient female sterilization procedure called minilaparotomy;
• Training staff in infection prevention, family planning counseling, and the use of COPE to ensure the quality of services.  COPE®, which stands for client-oriented, provider-efficient services, helps health care workers identify problems, find the root causes, and develop effective solutions.