This monthly newsletter aims to highlight the participatory research initiatives emerging from Participatory Research @ McGill (PRAM), and Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET), as well as share new opportunities for projects, courses, funding, and more!
Note, the PRAM newsletter is offered in the following languages:
The PRAM team unites monthly to provide project updates, present research protocols, practice dissertations defences, and more.
This month, two special guest speakers, Angela Walsh and Nadia Albert, joined us from the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative in so-called Australia. Angela and Nadia have a combined thirty-five years of experience facilitating and supporting community-led action and change for preventing violence against women and girls and anti-racism across Australia and internationally.
Angela and Nadia currently share a senior policy advisor role at Wathaurong Aboriginal Cooperative, supporting a staff-led organizational strategic planning and anti-racism praxis project, a community-led research project, policy development, and establishing advocacy strategy for local and regional Aboriginal Community Controlled Organizations.
During the PRAM meeting, Angela and Nadia shared results from their usage of fuzzy cognitive mapping for a staff-led refresh of Wathaurong Aboriginal Cooperative's strategic plan on Wada-wurrung country in Australia. We appreciated their insights and look forward to hearing more from both Angela and Nadia in the future!
New Project
Traditional knowledge and practices for self-care of pregnant and post-natal women: Bogotá, Colombia
We are happy to announce a new collaboration with a recently developed project in Bogotá, Colombia. The project aims to determine the frequency of traditional knowledge and practices for self-care during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period among women treated in the public healthcare system. The project is led by Andres Cañón at Universidad El Bosque (picture courtesy of Andres Cañón), with the support of PRAM and the network of public hospitals in the north of the city (Subred Integrada de Servicios de Salud Norte ESE).
Following a mixed methods design, the study will conduct a survey to measure the frequency of knowledge and practices among mothers treated in participating hospitals. Using the Socialization of Evidence for Participatory Action (SEPA), groups of women who participated in the survey and hospital officials will propose actions for cultural adaptation of healthcare services.
We look forward to hearing how this project progresses.
Announcement: New Master's Program
We wish to congratulate our colleagues at the Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero (UAGro) on their newly created Master's degree in Primary Health Care!
The Master's Degree in Primary Health Care, will be offered in a hybrid format and seeks to address the following objectives:
To train health workers in the field of theoretical and empirical knowledge of Primary Health Care to improve public health conditions.
To foster links between institutions and communities, and study local, national, and international cases regarding priority health concerns.
To create an academic space that uses participatory research approaches and integrate community voice in the planning process of health interventions.
The development of this degree was supported by the Interinstitutional Committee for the Training of Human Resources in Health (CIFRHS) and will be taught by the Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Tropicales (CIET) at UAGro. The evaluation and approval by CIFRHS was essential for the registration of the master's degree in the General Directorate of Professions of the Ministry of Public Education of Mexico.
Congratulations again to our friends and colleagues at UAGro! For more information about the program, please contact Sergio Paredes.
Yagana Gidado
Partner Spotlight
We wanted to introduce PRAM newsletter readers to Yagana Gidado, a member of the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN) and a longtime partner and collaborator on PRAM/CIET initiatives in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
About FOMWAN
The Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN) is a non-profit and non-governmental civil society umbrella body for Muslim women associations in Nigeria. The mission of FOMWAN is a world where women are totally empowered to be role models in making positive impacts in Islamic religion and secular matters.
Bauchi State FOMWAN Chapter was formed in June 1986 and now has branches in the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state with 10 affiliate organizations and over five thousand members within the state. The state chapters have been involved in diverse projects, such as managing orphanages, schools (e.g., nursery/primary, secondary schools, adult literacy, Arabic/Qur’anic literacy), hospitals, and more, and have worked with various local, national and international organizations on projects which have direct impact on communities.
The main goals and objectives of the organization are:
(1) To improve the moral and intellectual development of women, youth and children; (2) To improve the general health status of women, children and youth in Nigeria; (3) To empower women, youth, and children through skills acquisition and other financial and material support, and training for sustainable development; (4) To enhance the level of understanding of the teachings of Islam amongst the people; and (5) To continue to influence and effect positive changes in policies, and issues that affect women, youth, and children and the religion of Islam.
Read more about FOMWAN here
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Bauchi State FOMWAN Chapter was formed in June 1986 and now has branches in the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state with 10 affiliate organizations and over five thousand members within the state. The state chapters have been involved in diverse projects, such as managing orphanages, schools (e.g., nursery/primary, secondary schools, adult literacy, Arabic/Qur’anic literacy), hospitals, and more, and have worked with various local, national and international organizations on projects which have direct impact on communities.
The main goals and objectives of the organization are:
(1) To improve the moral and intellectual development of women, youth and children; (2) To improve the general health status of women, children and youth in Nigeria; (3) To empower women, youth, and children through skills acquisition and other financial and material support, and training for sustainable development; (4) To enhance the level of understanding of the teachings of Islam amongst the people; and (5) To continue to influence and effect positive changes in policies, and issues that affect women, youth, and children and the religion of Islam.
Hear from Yagana directly about her involvement with PRAM/CIET initiatives!
When did you first get involved with PRAM/CIET? What projects have you worked on together?
I first got involved with PRAM/CIET in 2009, when in collaboration with Bauchi States and Cross River State, we implemented the Nigerian Evidenced-based Health System Initiative (NEHSI). Through NEHSI, we conducted three social audit cycles, which helped in establishing a population based benchmark on priority maternal outcomes and identified actionable exposures contributing to the outcomes.
What have you gained from this collaboration with PRAM/CIET? How do you see this collaboration evolving in the future?
Through this collaboration, my capacity and that of my team members has been built. We have gained a lot of skills to work and contribute to the best of our abilities towards achieving professional distinction and proficiency in the field of participatory research; especially, community engagement using local knowledge, community participation, transparency in getting in to the root causes of common issues, and developing solutions along with the communities, particularly with those affected directly.
The main things I brought into this collaboration [with PRAM/CIET] is a good understanding of community dynamics, acceptability, transparency, participation trust when engaging communities to bring the voice of voiceless into planning.
Continuing with the collaboration will contribute to the development of the organization towards achieving excellence at all times and circumstances. It will also improve the organizations objectives to achieve its goals and targets which will lead to national development and strengthen partnerships at all levels.
