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Family Advancement for Life and Health |
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Family Advancement for Life and
Health (FALAH) was a USAID funded five year project in reproductive health and
family planning whose aim was to protect the health and well being of mothers,
newborns and children through the adoption of birth spacing by eligible couples
in Pakistan. The project was implementedin 15 districts of all four
provinces Population Council Pakistan was the lead partner along with a
consortium of a number of national and international implementing and technical
partners. Specifically, the goal of FALAH was to bring about an increase in the
adoption of birth spacing behavior and practice of the WHO recommended birth
spacing interval under the guidelines of “Healthy Timing and Spacing of
Pregnancies” (HTSP), thereby bringing about marked improvements in
maternal/child health and decline in their mortality rates due to pregnancy
related complications.
This was achieved through removing barriers, improving understanding of the
benefits of birth spacing, increasing awareness of the risks associated with
early, late, closely spaced and high parity pregnancies, increasing knowledge of
the various contraceptive options available , and improving access to and
quality of care in both the public and private sectors.The major collaborative
partners and institutions were the project consortium partners (Population
Council, Jhpiego, Greenstar social marketing, HANDS, RSPN, and Save the
Children, USA), the Federal Ministry of Population Welfare(PWD), the Federal Ministry
of Health, the four Provincial Departments of Population Welfare and Health, the
EDOs and the executive officers for PWD and Health in the 15 District
Governments, and external partners of FALAH including PAIMAN, TACMIL, UNICEF and
UNFPA and the donor USAID....(more) |
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Seminar on "Family Planning Revitalized: Evidence from FALAH" held in Islamabad
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The Population Council’s FALAH project organized a one day seminar on ‘Family
Planning Revitalized: The Evidence from FALAH’ at Karachi on March 21, 2012 to
share the experiences, lessons learnt and the impact of FALAH’s various
interventions on the lives of the people in the project districts. The seminar
was attended by more than 200 participants including representatives from
Health, Population Welfare and other relevant government departments, USAID,
donor organizations, academics, NGOs, and civil society.
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Chief of Party FALAH, Dr Ali Mir presented an overview of the FALAH project
including the process, project components and implementation. Dr Arshad Mehmood,
Director Research, Monitoring & Evaluation presented the results of Endline
survey. According to the results, the FALAH project has been very successful in
raising the Contraceptive Prevalence on average by 8.5% in its projects
districts, a remarkable achievement, with the uptake highest amongst the poor,
rural and younger couples. This has been possible to a great extent by involving
and sensitizing men in the family planning debate and through FALAH’s
Information, Education (IEC) initiatives and training of providers to
proactively provide services.
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Husbands group meetings held to familiarize men with the “Birth Spacing”
concept, have proved successful. The initiative to involve the religious
community has also been a resounding success, with the FALAH project sensitizing
1,470 religious leaders on the benefits of “Birth Spacing.” Many of these
religious leaders have become advocates of HTSP messages in their communities.
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In addition to that, FALAH has introduced the Basic Minimum Family Planning
Contents Package into the medical, nursing and midwifery curriculum, which
incorporates a client-centered approach to offering family planning services.
FALAH established hands on skills labs on various family planning techniques,
trained master trainers to sustain training in quality family planning, and
developed the paramedical curriculum on birth spacing. FALAH strengthened 4
nursing schools and 24 community midwifery schools.
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The project has trained more than 35,000 managers and health care providers from
public and private sectors; especially Lady Health Worker (LHW) to provide
client centered reproductive health service. A third party evaluation points to
a rise in Lady Health Worker’s visitation rate and family planning clientele in
the project districts where the LHWs have been trained by FALAH. It also shows
that the staff of 70% Rural Health Centers / Basic Health Units of Health
Department is now providing birth spacing services.
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FALAH has been a success and has reaped major dividends in terms of meeting the
reproductive health needs of remote and rural communities through introducing
the “Birth Spacing” concept in its 15 implementing districts.
During the panel discussion on “Linkages between Birth Spacing, Health Outcomes
and Development”, the health specialists including Dr Khalid Shaikh, Additional
Secretary Health, Mr. Ashfaq Shah Additional Secretary PWD, Mrs Sahib Jan MNCH
Provincial Coordinator, Mr. Saifullah Provincial Coordinator Lady Health Worker
Program, Dr. Sher Shah Syed President PMA, Dr. Sadiqa Jaffery President NCMNH,
Dr. Yasmeen Qazi Senior Country Advisor Population Program Packard Foundation,
and Dr Naseerudin Mahmood Director SINA gave their view point and appreciated
FALAH’s contribution in promoting the “Birth Spacing “for better health of
mothers, children and the family. |
In the panel discussion on “Sustainability and Taking Forward the Birth Spacing
Agenda”, the representatives from the Government Department; endorsed FALAH’s
strategy for tackling the unmet need for contraceptive services and making the
project agenda more sustainable. The Additional Secretary Health, Additional
Secretary Population Welfare, and the Provincial Coordinators for LHW and MNCH
Programs expressed their keen desire that the FALAH project be continued and
upscaled. While reaffirming their commitment to take the Birth Spacing agenda
forward they also pointed to the lack of resources currently available in the
provinces and therefore stressed the need for support from development partners.
In her remarks, Ms Nora Madrigal, Health Development Officer USAID, said that
“we at USAID are gratified that the preliminary results presented today show the
positive impact of the FALAH initiatives in improving the unmet need for family
planning services.” “I believe seminars such as these can successfully take
forward the lessons learnt over the past five years, make the lessons learnt
sustainable and institutionalize the key interventions that have worked and
reverse the unsatisfactory trends. USAID will continue supporting similar
projects which are aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of mothers and
children in the Pakistan,” Ms. Madrigal said further.
The Guest of Honor Mr. Khurshid Naeem Malik spoke on the importance of the
“Birth Spacing” paradigm shift and the positive impact of the FALAH project in
the province and endorsed the scale up of FALAH interventions in other
districts. The Chief Guest, Mr. Imtiaz Shaikh, Advisor to the Chief Minister,
Sind and Minister for Special Education also acknowledged FALAH’s contribution
to Pakistan’s family planning debate and the Sindh government’s commitment to
improving the reproductive health of its citizens. He also stressed the need to
continue supporting projects like FALAH that have shown tremendous success in
repositioning family planning as health intervention in the country. |
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Seminar on "Family Planning Revitalized: Evidence from FALAH" held in Karachi
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To mark the successful completion of the four and a half year FALAH project
and
to disseminate the results of FALAH End line survey
a one day seminar was
organized on ‘Family Planning Revitalized:
The Evidence from FALAH’ at Islamabad
on March 29, 2012 .
The objective of the seminar was to share the experiences,
lessons learnt and the impact of FALAH’s various interventions on the lives of
the people in the project districts. The seminar was attended by close to 300
participants including the representatives from all relevant government
departments including, Health, Population Welfare, Planning and Development,
representatives from the provinces, USAID and other donor organizations,
academics, NGOs, FALAH partners, civil society representatives and media.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Sector Ms. Shahnaz Wazir Ali was
the Chief Guest at the seminar, which marked the end of the project. Ms. Syeda
Fiza Batool Gillani, the Goodwill Ambassador for Women Empowerment and daughter
of the Prime Minister was the Guest of Honor at the occasion. Ms. Karen Freeman
Deputy Mission Director and Ms. Nora Madrigal Health Development Officer
represented the USAID.
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Chief of Party FALAH presented an overview of the project including the process,
project components and implementation. Dr. Arshad Mehmood, Director Research,
Monitoring & Evaluation and Dr Gul Rashida, Senior Director Training presented
the results of Endline survey. According to the results, the FALAH project has
been very successful in raising the Contraceptive Prevalence by an average of
8.5% in its projects districts. The highest rise in contraceptive prevalence has
been in districts such as Charsadda (12.7%), Sanghar (12.4), Rajanpur (12.2%),
Sukkur (11.4%) and Mardan (8.2%) with the highest uptake amongst the poor, rural
and younger couples. This has been possible to a great extent by involving and
sensitizing men on the health benefits of birth spacing and through FALAH’s
Information, Education (IEC) initiatives and training of providers to
proactively provide services.
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The Chief Guest, Ms. Shahnaz Wazir Ali, was highly appreciative of
the FALAH
project. She said that FALAH project had been a game changer that had turned
everything on its head to put people at the fore front of the interventions. The
well designed, carefully and comprehensively implemented project, has brought
about a paradigm shift towards birth spacing, utilizing the media and
effectively working in partnership with Government. Above all, she said, the
solids results presented today show the greatest uptake of family planning had
been by rural, poor, young and uneducated women. The results presented were
evidence that unmet need for family planning can be addressed through
interventions among the very group that was considered difficult to approach.
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Ms. Wazir Ali also stressed that lessons from the FALAH project should not be
squandered and should be build upon further and expanded to the rest of
Pakistan. She concluded her remarks by presenting the idea of having a second
phase of FALAH to carry forward the excellent work done by the project.
Speaking at the occasion the Provincial representatives from Health and
Population Welfare Departments, Sindh, KPK and Punjab said that they will
continue to use the models developed by FALAH. They said that FALAH had defined
a road map for Health and Population sectors to work together. Mr. Ahmed Hanif
Orkzai, Secretary Population Welfare Department KPK also commended FALAH’s
initiatives and explained how KPK intended to take these forward. The Additional
Secretary Population Welfare department Sindh said “FALAH was not ending but
opening several new doors for the provinces to take forward the birth spacing
agenda”. Representing USAID on the occasion, Deputy Mission Director Ms. Karen
Freeman, said that it is was indeed heartening to note that the FALAH
initiatives have been well-received and there is a growing recognition,
including within the religious community, that healthy timing and spacing of
pregnancies contributes to the health of all mothers, children and overall
development indicators.”What is now required as the next step, said Ms. Freeman,
“is that the innovative interventions introduced by FALAH need to be sustained
and scaled up so the benefits of the interventions can be reaped throughout the
country.” Ms. Freeman thanked each and everyone and saluted those who had
contributed to making the FALAH project such a success.
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Speaking at the occasion, the Guest of Honor, Ms. Syeda Fiza Batool Gillani,
highlighted the importance of the “Birth Spacing” as a successful model for
improving maternal and child health outcomes. She said FALAH was a fine example
of bilateral cooperation and appreciated USAID’s contribution towards improving
the well-being of the people of Pakistan.
The Goodwill Ambassador stressed that the government, both at the national and
provincial levels, our development partners and members of civil society must
provide continued support and commitment to further the cause of women and
children in Pakistan. She also requested the media to increase people’s
awareness on various population issues such as the importance family planning,
gender equality, poverty, maternal health and human rights.
Dr Zeba Sathar, Country Director, Population Council presented the vote of
thanks. In her closing remarks she said, “the time for family planning to take
off and for fertility change is now and it would be one of the greatest mistakes
not to ensure that we maintain the momentum that we have just built up. Our
results merely show that if we continue with the same speed and if we can expand
the FALAH experience to other districts we can raise our contraceptive
prevalence rate in the rural areas easily to 43 percent and over 55 percent in
urban areas by 2015. We must not let the opportunity to go waste, as the lessons
and the models have been tested and are showing great impact.” |
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