Yesterday I joined my coworker Didi and one of the PKBI nurses on a little outing to a women’s group meeting for our Global Comprehensive Abortion Care Program. After all the women’s meetings I have been involved in, and since this one was held at a district office near my house, I wasn’t surprised to see more than a handful of familiar faces and even more warm welcomes as the buleh girl was more presented, rather than introduced to the group. At events like this that reach into the community it is really interesting for me to see how grassroots education is carried out. Whether it is our staff that holds seminars in community offices or our cadre of female community leaders that we educate on sexual and reproductive health issues and they then disperse this knowledge to village women, both are aimed to improve health at the local level through awareness and prevention.
This day our info workshop included two presentations, one focusing on pap smears and the other on unwanted pregnancy. It seemed like the women are genuinely interested in learning but I wonder how greatly the information affects their behavior. I say that because the woman who was sitting to me (also my neighbor and Sumi’s sister in-law) is 34 with children and she told me she has never gotten a pap smear because she is afraid! She accepts the fact that it is important for her health, she can afford it, and her close family member works at a clinic were they are offered so it seems obvious... but then again, Sumi has not yet had one either because she is not married. My change-seeking self is anxious about this and I believe we may need a more vigorous approach since our clinic only gave 120 pap smears this past year from women coming in on their own.
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