The Women and Girls Initiative (WGI) promotes adolescent girls’ social protection, empowerment, and leadership. Under the hospices of Partners in Health, WGI has worked to empower the most marginalized and disadvantaged adolescent girls and young women in Rwanda and Haiti through scholarships, youth resource centers, and summer leadership academies. Since Read more…
The hardest part about growing rice in a lush river valley in southeastern Rwanda, a dedicated group of farmers says, is “keeping the beds”—in other words, frequently yelling and waving to scare away flocks of hungry birds that descend on the paddies. Farmers’ piercing calls create a steady background noise Read more…
On a rainy July day in Sierra Leone, children across the country walked to their local schools with pencils in hand, to take their end-of-year exams. If they passed, they would be accepted into the next grade level when school returned in September. As children and young adults all around Read more…
On most days, Dalitso Mkango is busy selling her vegetables in the market in the central village of Neno District, Malawi. And if she’s not selling her produce, then she’s at home working in her gardens. Rumour has it that she has some of the best produce around—likely because of Read more…
When Françoise Umutesi looks at her 1-year-old grandson, Blessing, she has the smile of someone who once thought she’d never have the chance to meet him. Umutesi, 45, is a breast cancer survivor. She had a mastectomy in 2012, at Butaro District Hospital in northern Rwanda. She was one of Read more…
Wearing a “Feeling Lucky” T-shirt as she held her children close, Rose Kapeni* gently opened the front door of her new home and leaned forward to look inside. She smiled, and sighed in happiness and relief. Then she walked in to check out her new surroundings—with an excited group of Read more…
– By Mark Brender A soft cry comes from inside Agnes Ubaruta’s small mud home in rural southern Kayonza, Rwanda. Aline is awake. Agnes goes inside and comes back carrying her daughter, curled and sleepy, in her arms. Aline is three now and thriving, which is something Agnes couldn’t have Read more…
The authors of this blog are Prativa Baral, Lissa Murseli, and Zahraa Saab, who are dedicated members of the Partners In Health Canada Spark (PIHC Spark) education group. PIHC Spark is a self-organizing collective of volunteers from across Canada building a movement for global health equity and social justice. PIH Read more…