News

Thanks to Pathfinder International, anti-shock garments are saving lives in Northern Nigeria.

"It reduces blood loss by 50 percent and has decreased maternal mortality and morbidity by 40-60 percent in studies in Egypt and Nigeria," says Suellen Miller, RN, Ph.D., director of the Safe Motherhood Program at the University of California at San Francisco, who helped develop the project with Pathfinder and has led trials of the LifeWrap. "Women are able to be stabilized and travel long distances in the garment to large hospitals where they can receive care."

The Bangladesh Maternal Mortality and Health Care Survey 2010 shows a dramatic decline in maternal mortality from 320 per 100,000 live births in 2001 to 194 per 100,000 in 2010.

The Non-Inflatable Anti-Shock Garment that buys time in cases of Postpartum hemmorhage is making childbirth safer around the world.

Pathfinder International, a reproductive health NGO, is using the NASG in Nigeria and India. Dr. Farouk Jega, program manager in Pathfinder's Abuja, Nigeria office, says that the NASG helps address a critical problem in his country, where blood is often in short supply. "Clinicians can't always refrigerate blood banks because of spotty electricity, and many people don't want to donate blood because they fear being tested for HIV," says Dr. Jega.

USAID and community leaders in Yemen, a global "hot spot" for child marriage, strive to make a change.

The initial results of this pilot are promising. In one year, community educators reached 29,000 people, leading to an 18 percent jump in awareness in the benefits of delaying marriage. The program was instrumental in preventing 53 girl-child marriages.

In a discussion concerning family planning, leaders address failure in Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, Pathfinder International's Country Director Dr Tauseef Ahmed said, "Pakistan has steadily improved family planning services over time but the progress has been limited due to absence of a holistic approach and poor use of evidence for programmatic development."

Pathfinder International is pleased to announce the addition of Margaret Kemp Carlson to Pathfinder's Executive Team as the Vice President of Administration.

A rural health clinic which continues to implement activities introduced by Pathfinder's Integrated Reproductive Health Services Project (Takamol) impressed the mission director of USAID in Egypt during a recent visit.

New airport security initiatives prompt a discussion on the lives of women and their lack of agency and choice.

When your junk is not under your own control, the stakes are high. For instance, family planning saved Georgette who by age 38 had already been pregnant 20 times. Thanks to the harsh conditions in war-torn Central Africa, seven of her babies died of starvation when her breastfeeding was prematurely ended because of another pregnancy. When Pathfinder International stepped in to offer Georgette reproductive health care and a choice to avoid her 21st pregnancy, a better life for her and her children began.

Pathfinder International announces the retirement of Daniel Pellegrom, the longest-serving president of a global reproductive health organization in history.

Pathfinder International developed a solar-powered blood transfusion system to aid cases of postpartum hemmorhage, making childbearing safer.

Blood transfusion is essential for preventing maternal death from postpartum hemorrhage but blood bank refrigeration is a problem in areas without reliable electricity. With funding from the Cloverleaf Foundation, Pathfinder International developed a solar-powered system to address this problem.

Project director in Yemen, Dr. Hamouda Hanafi, is interviewed about the initiatives and accomplishments in the last five years.

The clinics targeted all the rural areas and villages of the six governorates where the project works. We were able to deliver basic health services to areas that had never had access to governmental or organizations' health services working in the area .

After hearing news of a story in Ethiopia, Cara Hesse proves that a small effort can produce results.

The chain of events began in March, 2001, when a 13-year-old girl named Woinshet Zebene was abducted from her Ethiopian village and raped for two days. After she escaped, bloodied and bruised, the suspect was arrested and then released on bail. That same week, the man abducted Woinshet again, hiding the girl in his brother's house and raping her for 15 days before she escaped and sought refuge with her grandmother.

Pathfinder is pleased to share that for the past few years we have been accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance.

Issues of death in childbirth are a forgotten crisis, one that demands further attention in the United States.

The issue is a very personal one for me, because doctors say that if my mother did not have some of the best obstetric care in the world—right here in the United States—my birth would have killed both of us.

Pathfinder's Takamol project joined two other USAID projects for a community event in Cairo hosted by USAID's Office of Health and Population

Last week, Pathfinder International sent a letter to the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition in support of the HANDtoHAND campaign.

At the invitation of People's Aid Coordinating Committee of Viet Nam, Pathfinder Viet Nam Country Representative Dr. Ton van der Velden delivered a speech on the 60th anniversary of Vietnamese Union for Friendship Organizations (VUFO).

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, Pathfinder is speaking out against last month's action of the Ugandan government's Ethics and Integrity Minister to ban a civil society workshop on the human rights of sex workers across the African continent.

Pathfinder International is pleased to announce a new five-year, $55 million, USAID award for a project focused on Kenya's largest urban centers--Nairobi and Mombasa and their surrounding areas.

USAID health project, awarded to Pathfinder International, known as the AIDS, Population, and Health Integrated Assistant II (APHIA II) will be implemented in Nairobi and Coast Provinces from January 2011 to December 2015.

Like APHIA II, APHIAplus will strengthen the country's ability to improve the lives of mothers, children and their families in the areas of HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning, reproductive health, and tuberculosis with quality health services.