December 2024
Reproductive health care programs that bring patient-centered family planning services to communities in rural and/or marginalized settings are crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It’s only through locally led outreach efforts and quality clinical services patients trust that birth rates will voluntarily come down and population will approach stabilization. We’re proud to support such initiatives — two of them featured in this issue, in Indonesia and Guatemala — through our Global Partners program, and we thank you for being the reason we can do so year after year.
Cover image: Community health worker Yanne T.L. Beis in front of the village office where she works with Ipas Indonesia to expand women’s access to contraceptives and to encourage men to support their wives if they desire to use family planning. Photo courtesy of Ipas Indonesia.
Here, women do not just stay at home; they also work to support their husbands. During planting season, they must help out. If they do not, there won’t be enough food for the entire year. Managing many children adds even more stress. Indonesian community health worker, re more women seeking contraception due to daily work demands
Ipas Indonesia launched the TAKENUSA (“Collective Determination for Women in Nusa Tenggara”) program in the East Nusa Tenggara province to address the low contraceptive prevalence rate relative to the national average. TAKENUSA is training midwives in long-acting reversible contraceptives, and community health workers and local leaders are disseminating family planning information and engaging with men to encourage them to support their wives if they want to use contraceptives. Read more in the feature article at left: “Expanding Family Planning Access in Indonesia”
Photo at right: Midwives in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, participating in a family planning training led by Ipas Indonesia in June 2023
Space Ship Earth cartoon below by Michael Murphy, Population Connection President’s Circle member
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