Our work
If you want to improve the health of women in the developing world, the most obvious solution is to improve the quality and availability of heathcare.
But often the state of women's health is a symptom of deeper problems. And it's by working to solve these problems – poverty, for example, or lack of education – that VSO can make the greatest impact on women's health.
The stories below show just a few of the ways our work is empowering women to be healthy.
Health education in Uganda
In Uganda, many people living in rural villages can't afford to pay for transport to get to hospital, so they don't get drugs and they die. That's why VSO volunteer Pam Llewellyn has trained 100 village volunteers in health education.
Together, they go out into the community and spread the word about preventing malaria. They have also distributed mosquito nets at a subsidised price, and taught people how to use them properly. (Selling the nets is better than giving them away, because people value them more and so look after them better.)
More than 5,000 nets have been distributed so far, meaning thousands of lives have been saved.
Fighting malnutrition in Cambodia
VSO volunteer Emily Holtmaat has taken a novel approach to combating malnutrition in Cambodia – she's set up a course of cooking lessons for the parents of afflicted children.
"In the West, we get nutrition education at primary school, on TV, from our parents and even from the press. Here in Cambodia those systems of transferring knowledge just don't exist in the same way," she says.
Emily initially ran the classes herself, but that responsibility has now been passed on to the staff at the hospital where she works, so her good work will continue long after she returns home.
Moving the goalposts in Kenya
In Kilifi, Kenya, VSO volunteer Cocky Van Dam has been instrumental in setting up Moving the Goalposts, an organisation that uses football to help girls and young women fulfil their potential.
Over 3,000 girls and young women play football through Moving the Goalposts. They gain all the normal benefits associated with playing sport, such as improved health and cardio-vascular fitness.
But the game also provides a focal point for a peer-led health education programme that informs players about reproductive health issues, children's rights and HIV and AIDS.
Want to know more?
For more information on the work we do, visit www.vso.org.uk
