Dolna Banya, September 2-4, 2020
Meeting of the teams on the project ‘My Body, My Rights’, supported by the prohgamme for socially responsible business “MSD for Mothers” took place in Dolna Banya on September 2-4, 2020. Special guests during the event were the Executive Director of ‘St. Sofia’ First OB Hospital Dr. Gergana Kolarova and the coordinator of BFPA in Pleven Dr. Krasimir Romanov. The priceless opportunity to have a direct dialog with Dr. Kolarova was highly appreciated by the team in Sofia and gave them the possibility to adjust the field efforts and optimize the collaboration with the hospital in the field of family planning.
Topics of the discussions during the three-day meeting were: what examinations to be done during the pregnancy and what is doing the gynecologist in the different stages; what are the benefits from health insurances; how much does it cost and how to recover health insurance rights; the benefits of visualization for understanding the information. Short educational films, developed to help the work at local level, were presented.
The work during the three days with health mediators and other colleagues working on the field from Montana, Sofia and Yambol included discussing the progress currently made and future activities trill the project end.
In the crisis months from the beginning of the year two tenth graders from Yambol were close to drop out from school due to the death of their parents, but the project team supported them and the boys will finish their secondary education. Two of the girls, trained on the project this year will be studying pedagogy in Veliko Tarnovo University.
In august the self help meetings in Montana started happening again, the big success is that a lot of women from the most marginalized communities had been attracted. The COVID pandemic has fully changed the work style of the team in Sofia. There had been a warm lunch organized for the people from the community.
Some of the ideas of health mediators and the teams by locations for activities in the near future are meetings of the groups for self support and exchanging experience looking for sustainability; Anti AIDS campaign for young people in December (Yambol); working with men together with RHI and other partners, HIV testing and other medical activities, health education in and out of the groups for self support (Montana); campaigns for prevention of breast cancer and for reproductive problems; theater with messages for young people; the initiative ‘present in the box’; work on cases; sessions for young mothers (Sofia).
One of the most serious challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic is that internet does not cover every village in Yambol. The good is that during the state of emergency support came from the company Aroma and people from the community in Sofia received needed hygienic and cosmetic products. More and more businesses are socially responsible and people from vulnerable communities face much bigger understanding.
Testing and collecting feedback for MYRA – the mobile application to be helpful for women and men on family planning, took place in the frame of the event.
