Difference between revisions of "Team:UCSC/Human Practices-2"

Line 4: Line 4:
  
 
<style>
 
<style>
 +
 +
h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
 +
  color: #e91b63 !important;
 +
}
  
 
#country_list .flex-col {
 
#country_list .flex-col {

Revision as of 23:56, 10 October 2018

Human Practices




Worldwide Connections - A UCSC Tradition

The iGEM Competition challenges teams to improve quality of life using synthetic biology. Creating change requires an understanding of what the world is asking for, and as the 6th UCSC iGEM team, we uphold the reputation of UCSC investing heavily in worldwide outreach to not only spread the word about our project, but to understand the impact of our project on a personal level. Through these personal connections, we evaluated and continue to evaluate potential issues related to our project, including stigma, price, ethics, safety, security, and sustainability.



Quotes

Inspiration

Before choosing a project, our team emailed over 50 World Health Organization representatives around the globe to determine the most pressing issues. With the women’s rights movement on the rise again, the 2018 UCSC iGEM team wanted to prompt the discussion of women’s health at this year’s competition. We determined that many less-developed countries struggle with access to contraception because of stigma, location, and cost. Our goal was to focus on those countries to determine if they’d be interested in our new contraception method and willing to speak with us about their personal experiences.

Execution

Our outreach team contacted several big organizations, associations, and foundations for help on finding locals willing to speak to us. Not many of them got back to us, so we went an alternative route. We searched GoFundMe and found a group of women in Uganda called the Joy Women’s Group asking for money to help buy condoms for their community. They were funded through the Brighter Brains Institute (BBI), and we quickly contacted the BBI who put us into contact with three local women’s groups in Uganda. Read More >>

Outcome

Through our survey and close conversations with people from several countries, we gained a better understanding of the situations and challenges of women around the world. We received over 56 responses to our survey as well as personal testimonies from people regarding their perspective on birth control in their communities. In the stories below, names have been exchanged with popular names from individuals’ respective countries for privacy reasons. Check out our map below to learn more!


.

United States of America Mexico New Zealand Colombia Uganda India United Kingdoms Italy Peru Brazil Russia China Guatemala Australia Australia
divider image



Australia

Jenna, Pediatric Doctor

Awaiting completion of questionnaire.

We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.

Brazil

Gisele, Mother and Community Leader

Gisele is a family friend of a teammate and mother of seven. Gisele knows many women who had to perform their own at-home abortions if an unwanted pregnancy arose, since abortions are illegal in Brazil; these abortions often resulted in medical complications, and women were sent to hospitals to receive treatment for the aftermath of these dangerous abortion attempts. Read More >>

China

Zhi, Former Chinese Citizen

We spoke with a former Chinese Citizen named Zhi. When Zhi lived in China, they witnessed first-hand the atrocities of the one-child-per-couple policy where women were often forced to have abortions or sterilization; babies were often abandoned or murdered, especially if the child was female. Read More >>

Colombia

Yeraldin, Colombian Citizen

Through a personal connection with a team member, we met Yeraldin, a Colombian-born citizen. She believes that our birth control method research is a meaningful pursuit. According to Yeraldin, “there are many unwanted pregnancies in Colombia, but it is a problem because there is no money to buy [contraceptives]”. Yeraldin believes that an easy, affordable birth control option could minimize the large amount of unplanned pregnancies currently in Colombia. She does not know of any specific rumors on birth control in Colombia because birth control is rarely discussed. We hope to prompt the discussion of birth control by contacting Colombian officials in charge of regulating contraception and ask them if/how they plan to combat the ignorance around birth control.

Maria, Universidad de los Andes

A few members of our iGEM team attended the 2018 BMES Coulter Conference. At the conference, our team members met a student named Maria from a Colombian university known as the Universidad de los Andes. We asked if she’d be interested in assisting us with our birth control project, and she said she would help us gain insight about birth control access in Colombia. Read More >>

Guatemala

Lizza, Citizen

We are currently working on updating information. We will update as it becomes available.

India

Foundation for Mother and Child Health

Through a connection with our PI, David Bernick, we met Piyasree Mukherjee, CEO of the Foundation for Mother and Child Health in India. According Ms. Mukherjee, her community possesses differing views on birth control. Some deem birth control a “money trap” because it requires device replacement or multiple rounds of a prescription. Others are skeptical and/or not knowledgeable about birth control because of the lack of information. Our team knows that birth control is expensive, but this was the first time that we heard that women felt gouged by necessary recurrent purchases of birth control methods. We will continue to update this information when their questionnaire responses arrive.

Italy

Aurora, Frequent Traveler & Student

Our team spoke with a Aurora, a friend of the team and a frequent traveler between Italy and the US. During her travels to Italy, Aurora found it difficult to use her preferred form of birth control and was instead pushed to use an IUD. IUDs, although common, are accompanied by potential painful side-effects; Aurora described her first IUD experience as “super painful”. Read More >>

Mexico

Rosa, Citizen & Research Team Lead

Through our connection with the ITESG team in Guanajuato, Mexico, we were able to interview women willing to discuss their experiences with birth control in Mexico. We sent questionnaires to these locals and interviewed one woman named Rosa. Rosa described her younger self as “uneducated” on the proper use of birth control. As a result of her ignorance and continued lack of birth control, she became pregnant at a young age and had a child she couldn’t properly care for. Read More >>

New Zealand

Ava, New Zealand Citizen

Ava, an alum from the University of Otago, shared that she often struggles to obtain birth control. In New Zealand, 15-minute appointments with a local health care provider are available to all citizens but are too short to be personalized enough to the patient, and while longer appointments are available, they are more expensive. This lack of personalization and Ava’s lack of funds deterred her from pursuing birth control forms that require a prescription, so she instead pursued condom use. Read More >>

Peru

Guillermo, Former Peru Citizen

Guillermo is a close family friend of one of our iGEM members. He moved to the U.S. in the late 70’s but visits his family in Peru at least once a year. Guillermo has witnessed both Peru’s innovations and follies over the decades as he’s travelled between countries. In the 70’s and 80’s, birth control was very expensive, and only people of higher economic status had access to it. Read More >>

Russia

Misha, Former Russian Citizen

Our team spoke with Misha, a woman who spent the first part of her life in Soviet Russia. She tried for many years to obtain any form of birth control but only received her first IUD after having her first child at age 19. She couldn’t afford to purchase condoms and most couples opted to not use any forms of contraception anyway. Russia’s government did not encourage or supply cheap contraceptives but readily offered inexpensive abortions at state hospitals. Most women were aware of this and expected to have one to three abortions in their lifetimes. These clinics didn’t last long, as Misha described many of them closing after only a few years of operation; this forced many Russian women to obtain illegal abortions, most of which were ineffective and deadly to the mothers. We didn’t realize that so many women were forced to perform illegal abortions, and we hope to legalize our birth control method in Russia to prevent the need for these abortions.

Trinidad and Tobago

Tatyana, Trinidad and Tobago Resident

Tatyana is a mother of one and friend of a teammate. When we spoke to Tatyana about our new contraceptive, she was excited because she had believed condoms were the only type of birth control. Tatyana isn’t a fan of condoms anymore, as she experienced a condom that broke and resulted in an unexpected pregnancy. She relayed that “condoms are not reliable, but what is?”. Luckily, she was financially stable enough to care for the child; other mothers in Trinidad and Tobago who face similar situations are often unable to care for their children. Condoms are commonly found in local pharmacies, but information about how to use them is severely lacking. Tatyana explained that “we [women in this area] need to know more about [birth control], we want to know more about it”. Our team hopes that our brochure will inform these women of available alternatives to condoms and how to use them safely.

Uganda

Basaliza Women Development Association (BAWODA)

BAWODA is group of women leaders spread all throughout Uganda. Our outreach team spoke with Joy Muhindo, the chairperson of BAWODA. She informed us that the stigma on birth control in Uganda arose because women began trying unsanctioned birth control methods that had very dangerous side effects. Many women heard of these side effects and assumed that all birth control methods were this dangerous. The group encourages condom use if women cannot access safer birth control methods. While the BAWODA women are willing to try our new method, they hope that we also encourage condom use on top of our contraception because of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in poorer countries. We hadn’t considered that condom use is still necessary on top of our birth control since ours cannot protect against AIDS, so this was an important reminder for us to consider.

Buhanga Thuligahuma Women's Group

Through the recommendation of Hank Pellissier of the Brighter Brains Institute, our team contacted a Buhangan villager named Masereka Sebastian. Buhanga is a rural village of 2,000 people, and all are members of the BaKonzo tribe whose village is extremely isolated. According to Masereka Sebastian, you can't drive a car there - you have to walk 3 kilometers or take a dirt bike there. Since Masereka Sebastian owns a dirt bike and can access printing shops outside of the village, our iGEM team contacted him to print our questionnaires for distribution to the local Buhanga Women. Read More >>

Joy Women's Group

The Joy Women’s Group is located in Western Uganda in the Nyamwamba Division of the Kasese Municipality. One of their group’s objectives is to promote nutrition, health, and hygienic practices in the community. By far, the Joy Women’s Group is our most responsive group. All 25 of their group members were highly interested in participating in our survey. According to the participants, their community supports the use of contraceptives. Their community actually has access to contraception through a government healthcare facility known as Naigobya HC III. Naigobya HC III provides family planning services, maternal care, prenatal care, and post-natal care. Read More >>

Kabwe Rural Women Development Association (KARWODA)

Through the recommendation of Kabugho Beatrace from KUWA, we met Masika Annet of the Kabwe Rural Women Development Association (KARWODA). Beatrace informed Annet that we were looking for more information about birth control methods and/or family planning programs already in practice, and she told us that “most birth control methods are sold in hospitals, drug shops, and clinics but are inaccessible”. She emphasized that even though options are available, most are far too expensive for the average woman to afford. Read More >>

Kinywankoko United Women Association (KUWA)

Our iGEM team made contact with Kabugho Beatrace through Hank Pellissier of the Brighter Brains Institute. KUWA is a women’s group based in the Kasese Municipality of Uganda. They assist marginalized women in the surrounding villages by providing them condoms, sanitary products, feminine hygiene education, and economic empowerment. They reside in the Bukonzo county which is “rated among the poorest counties where women live below poverty line and one [Ugandan citizen] survives on less than one US dollar a day” (Kabugho Beatrace, chairperson of KUWA). Read More >>

Kyogha Women

The Kyogha Women were particularly interesting to speak with. Their chairperson, Esther, informed us that her group has been on the search for advanced, safe birth control methods for a while now. Her group recently visited Makerere University in Uganda to see if they can “make an advanced birth control method that is also accessible with less side effects”. Esther was ecstatic to hear of our approach. She’s spent many years implementing family planning programs and trying to address the stigma on birth control. As with other groups, she mentioned that people fear purchasing birth control because they don’t “want to be laughed at”. We hope that our new birth control method will end Esther’s search for an affordable and safe contraceptive.

Nyakiyumbu Widows Association

When our team reached out to the Nyakiyumbu Widow’s Association, they were quick to reply and were very interested in our contraception method. Muhindo Nyesi, chairperson of the NWA, stopped replying to our emails soon after. Our team wondered if her group lost interest, but we soon learned the reason for her absence; Nyesi’s nephew was hit by a car and, during recovery, was also brutally attacked by a group of boys. He was in the ICU for several weeks and underwent brain surgery, but he finally recovered enough for Nyesi to make a trip to the local library to email us back. She provided us responses to our questionnaire and apologized for her absence. We are so grateful for Nyesi’s dedication to our project, especially in these difficult times for her family. Read More >>

Promote Africa Foundation

We discovered the Promote Africa Foundation (PAF) through the Joy Women’s Group. The PAF is a united women’s group that runs programs related to female reproductive health and women’s rights. According to Evelyn Lewsley, the leader of the PAF, they “encourage women to space their children because most children are abandoned by families who fail to provide for their children”. The PAF encourages birth control methods throughout the Kasese District, and they’re currently encouraging birth control injections but struggle to get women to participate since injections sometimes cause bleeding. The PAF is excited to work with us as they hope our birth control method will be safer for the women in Africa.

Rita Women Development Association

The Rita Women Development Association resides in the Rwenzori region of Western Uganda. This group empowers women in their community and promotes contraceptives as a means to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. Through the recommendation of Kabugho Beatrace of KUWA, we made contact with the Rita women. Masika Vicky, the chairperson of Rita, informed us that there is a lot of stigma on contraception use (primarily condoms because they are the only contraception available). Read More >>

United Kingdom

Dr. Pam Lowe, Aston University

Our team spoke to Dr. Pam Lowe from Aston University in the United Kingdom. Dr. Lowe is the Senior Lecturer for the Department of Sociology and Policy at Aston University. Dr. Lowe is well known for her strong opinions on the unspoken ‘two-child policy’ in the United Kingdom. According to Dr. Lowe, the only stigma on birth control is not on those who use it, but rather it’s on those who DON’T. Read More >>

United States of America

Family Planning 2020

Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) is a well-known global partnership that supports women’s rights related to sexual and reproductive health. They are a subsection of the United Nations Foundation and are famous for partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spread birth control information and awareness. By 2020, they want to expand access to family planning “information, services, and supplies to women in 69 of the world’s poorest countries”. Read More >>

divider image

The PoPPY team would like to thank everyone who made this project possible, especially those described above. Thank you to every individual who participated in our human practices research by answering our questionnaire as well as those who allowed our team members to interview them on such personal matters. Without you, this project wouldn't be what it is today. Thank you!

divider image
Image 01 Image 02 Image 03 Image 04 Image 05 Image 06 Image 07 Image 08 Image 09 Image 10 Image 11 Image 12 Image 13 Image 14