The Fistula and Empowerment Program (FEP)

By: Habiba Cooper Diallo

From left to right, Marsha, Habiba (myself), Yolanda, and Rafeeda

The Fistula and Empowerment Program (FEP) has officially commenced! Today was the very first day it took place. What is FEP you ask?

It is a fistula education and empowerment program I started to educate young African-descended women living in Halifax, Canada, about obstetric fistula and how it relates to the overarching theme of women’s empowerment not only in Africa, but also to their own self-empowerment as Black women living in Canada who have unique, and often marginalized, health experiences.

The participants will meet on a weekly basis for two hours each session. In the first hour, I do fistula education with them explaining the technical aspects of fistula-- how it occurs from a prolonged, obstructed labour, the physiological consequences for the affected woman etc.-- as well as the social, psychological, and economic repercussions of the affliction. In the second hour, participants collectively decide upon a topic relating to their own health and well-being that they would like to address. 

As today was the very first session, Yolanda, one of the participants, made a list of topics that the group said they would like to discuss in the coming weeks.

Brainstorming topics

I am very pleased that the program has come off the ground. My team and I initially wanted to begin in March; however, due to space and funding issues we had to push back the start date to April. Luckily, we were able to secure a space at one of our local universities. We still do not have funding. Nonetheless, we've brainstormed innovative ways to run the program without start-up funding.  
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FEP will run as a pilot project from now (April) until the end of June. Thus, over course of three months, participants will develop insight about obstetric fistula and self-empower through the weekly sessions around a particular health/sociomedical topic

I am excited for the Fistula and Empowerment Program....! Are you? ;)

Yolanda making list of topics for upcoming weeks

List of topics to address this month, April :)

Marsha and Yolanda reading over Fistula and Empowerment program objectives and offering feedback

Links:

http://www.whoi.ca/blog/fep-is-back