This blog post was contributed by Faatimaa Ahmadi, one of the fifteen Young Champions of Maternal Health chosen by Ashoka and the Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth. She will be blogging about her experience every month, and you can learn more about her, the other Young Champions, and the program here.
Learning materials which had been informed by needs assessment were given to participants sitting in the group of 2. The Learning materials and tasks were in a form that started with providing the time for learners to reflect on their existing knowledge and experience. Then I presented the new content. After that they applied it in the class and then they considered its application in their own life.
The learners were engaged perfectly in the learning process.
It was in the middle of session that my mentor said: Fatima! They want to have their blood tested! I felt goose bump, it was unbelievable to see the impact of learning this much soon! After finishing the class I came out and surprisingly saw a long queue of our participants in front of the health centre who were having their blood tested. More than 80% of the participants had their blood tested the day of our educational session. I believe and faith that, by applying this model of education in maternal health field we can prevent those mortalities and morbidities which are due to inadequate knowledge or knowledge-behaviour gap in women. Before finishing the young champions’ journey all the Young Champions came together in Ghana. It was very nice to meet them again. After coming back from Ghana to Uganda, my professor at Al-Zahra University, Golnar Mehran, invited me to present the Young Champions journey and the project we had done in Uganda in a national conference at my university in Iran. I am also supposed to finish my dissertation which is “dialogue education a way to contribute to the health empowerment of pregnant women in Iran” before October. So I said goodbye to beautiful Uganda and farewell Joyce Fertility Support Centre by saying just a sentence “thank you for everything” as my tears didn’t let me to say more words!